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SUCCESS    IN    MUSIC 


SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

AND  HOW  IT  IS  WON 


BY 

HENRY   T.   IJINCK 

AITTBOR  or  "WAGNER  AND  HIS  WORKS,"  "  SONGS  AND  BONO 
WRITERS,"   "  CHOPIN,"  ETC. 


WITH  A  CHAPTER  ON  TEMPO  RUBATO 
BY 

IGNACE     JAN     PADEREWSKI 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 

1913 


F  ^3 


Copyright,  1909,  by 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons 


DEDICATED  TO 

THE   ARTISTS   NAMED   AND    UNNAMED 

WHO   HELPED 

TO   MAKE   THIS   BOOK   POSSIBLE 


304678 


PRELUDE 

When  I  was  a  boy  I  had  a  flower  garden  in  Oregon, 
where  it  seldom  rains  in  summer.  Every  evening  I  watered 
the  plants,  yet  they  soon  languished  in  spite  of  all  my  hard 
work.  The  garden  was  not  a  success — and  why  ?  Simply 
because  there  was  no  one  to  tell  me  that  I  did  not  go  deep 
enough.  The  ground  looked  moist,  but  I  had  wetted  the 
surface  only;  the  water  did  not  reach  the  roots,  and  the  poor 
plants  died  of  thirst. 

It  is  because  they  do  not  reach  the  roots  of  their  art  that 
so  many  young  musicians  fail.  They  toil  for  years,  cover- 
ing much  ground  in  exercising  their  fingers  and  vocal  cords 
(usually  "in  indolent  vacuity  of  thought"),  but  the  vivify- 
ing moisture  goes  down  only  an  inch  or  two,  and  after  a 
brief  season  of  bloom — or  none  at  all — they  disappear  for- 
ever. Edward  MacDowell  once  compasred  these  debutants 
to  the  potted  geraniums  sold  by  the  florists  in  spring,  every 
year  bringing  new  ones. 

The  situation  is  deplorable,  not  only  on  account  of  these 
discarded,  disappointed  young  singers  and  players,  but 
because  good  musicians  are  urgently  needed  ever)rwhere. 
The  demand  for  first-class  opera  singers,  in  particular,  is 
very  much  greater  than  the  supply.  Fame  and  fortune 
await  those  who  come  up  to  the  mark  more  surely  than  in 
almost  any  other  occupation;  yet  of  the  thousands  who 
try  every  year  only  a  few  succeed. 

Why  do  these  succeed  where  so  many  fail  ?  The  present 
volume  is  an  attempt  to  answer  this  question.  It  is  a  sort 
of  symposium  in  which  many  of  the  world's  greatest  sing- 
ers, pianists,  violinists,  and  teachers  tell  the  secrets  of  their 

vii 


viii  PRELUDE 

success.  Many  of  these  artists  I  have  had  the  privilege 
of  knowing  personally.  From  their  conversations  and  let- 
ters, and  from  a  thousand  other  sources,  I  have  endeavored 
to  construct  a  Gradus  ad  Parnassum,  a  path  showing  to  all 
how  they  can  reach  the  summit.  The  climbing  they  must 
do  themselves. 

Perhaps  nothing  will  surprise,  and  at  the  same  time 
encourage,  the  readers  of  these  biographic  sketches  so 
much  as  the  evidence  they  supply  that  there  are  many 
different  avenues  to  success.  There  is  a  chance  for  every- 
body— for  all,  at  any  rate,  who  will  use  their  brains  and 
heed  the  advice  given  by  the  famous  artists  in  these  pages. 

To  some  it  may  seem  that  Jenny  Lind's  career  is  dwelt 
on  at  disproportionate  length;  but  it  is  a  career  which 
illustrates  nearly  every  phase  of  artist  life,  and  one  of  the 
main  objects  of  this  volume  is  to  show  to  young  women 
and  men — and  their  parents — just  what  sort  of  adventures, 
joys,  and  sorrows  they  may  expect  in  choosing  such  a  life 
for  themselves  or  their  children. 

It  was,  of  course,  impossible  to  provide  sketches  of  all 
the  successful  musicians — that  would  have  required  sev- 
eral volumes.  Some  prominent  artists  are  left  out  simply 
because  I  could  find  nothing  unique  or  particularly  inter- 
esting in  their  careers;  and  as  I  have  placed  special  em- 
phasis on  the  fact  that  every  music  lesson  should  be  made 
interesting,  it  would  have  been  inconsistent  if  I  had  not 
tried  to  make  these  chapters  interesting  too,  all  the  more 
as  they  are  not  intended  for  students  and  performers 
alone,  but  also  for  parents,  for  opera-star  worshippers,  and 
for  music-lovers  in  general;  for  which  reason  anecdotes 
and  personal  details  have  been  interspersed  liberally. 

While  this  book  is  divided  into  sections  and  chapters 
treating  separately  of  singers,  pianists,  violinists,  and 
teachers,  I  most  earnestly  advise  students  to  read  all  the 
chapters,  whether  they  relate  to  their  particular  branch  or 


PRELUDE  ix 

not.  Vocalists  can  learn  a  great  deal  by  reading  about  the 
art  and  the  career  of  violinists  or  pianists,  who  in  turn  can 
learn  much  from  them.  Marcella  Sembrich,  for  instance, 
owes  much  of  her  success  as  a  singer  to  the  fact  that  she  is 
also  an  excellent  violinist  and  pianist. 

Special  pains  have  been  taken  to  make  the  Index  help- 
ful, but  every  reader  who  wishes  to  profit  fully  by  the  mul- 
titude of  hints  here  collected  would  do  well  to  follow  a 
method  I  have  found  of  great  value:  make  marginal  marks 
of  those  bits  of  advice  which  seem  most  useful  to  yourself, 
then  jot  these  down  briefly  on  a  few  sheets  of  paper  and 
read  them  over  again  and  again  and  again,  recurring  to  the 
book  for  details. 

Fears  have  been  expressed  that  the  mulitiplication  of 
mechanical  piano  players  and  singing  machines — one  firm 
alone  has  done  a  $50,000,000  business  in  a  single  year — 
will  injure  musicians  and  music  teachers.  They  need  not 
worry.  This  "canned  music,"  as  Mr.  Sousa  has  con- 
temptuously called  it,  really  stimulates  the  appetite  for 
still  better  things.  But  it  is  evident  that  mere  technic  has 
been  placed  at  a  discount  by  these  ingenious  and  brilliant 
automatic  or  semi-automatic  instruments,  and  it  follows 
that  if  the  teachers,  singers,  and  players  wish  to  keep  ahead 
of  these  machines,  they  must  give  most  of  their  attention 
to  the  secrets  of  musical  expression  and  temperament 
which  this  volume  attempts  to  reveal. 

Attention  is  called  particularly  to  the  epoch-making 
chapter,  XXVIII,  kindly  written  for  this  volume  by 
Mr.  Paderewski,  on  those  slight  modifications  of  pace 
which  constitute  the  very  essence  and  poetry  of  musical 
eloquence. 


CONTENTS 

PART  I 
MUSIC,  MONEY,  AND  HAPPINESS 

CHAPTER  'AGE 

I.  Does  Music  Pay? 3 

II.  Are  Great  Artists  Happy? 17 

PART  II 
SUCCESSFUL  SINGERS 

III.  Two  Swedish  Nightingales 27 

Jenny  Lind 27 

Christine  Nilsson 53 

IV.  Italian  Prima  Donnas 60 

Adelina  Patti 60 

Catalani  and  Pasta 69 

Tetrazzini:   A  Musical  Mystery    ...  75 

V.  Two  Spanish  Sisters 84 

Pauline  Viardot  Garcia 84 

Maria  Malibran 88 

VI.  The  Nationality  of  Singers 91 

jd 


xii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

VII.  German  and  Austrian  Singers 96 

Mara  and  Sontag 96 

Schroder-Devrient,  Wagner's  Idol    .    .  99 

LiLLi  Lehmann,  Wagner's  Ideal     ...  105 

Marianne  Brandt .  115 

Ernestine  Schumann-Heink 118 

Pauline  Lucca .  127 

Marcella  Sembrich 131 

VIII.  Melba,  Garden,  and  Calve  ......  138 

Nellie  Melba 138 

Mary  Garden .  143 

Emma  Calve   .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .  146 

IX.  Three  American  Sopranos 156 

Lillian  Nordica 156 

Emma  Eames 169 

Geraldine  Farrar 174 

X.  Is  the  Art  of  Song  Decaying?      ....  197 

XL  Modern  Improvements  in  Tenors      ...  202 

RuBiNi,  "King  of  Tenors" 202 

Mario's  Modern  Traits 204 

Tamagno  and  Campanini     ......  206 

Enrico  Caruso 208 

Why  De  Reszke  was  Supreme    .    .    .    .  211 

XII.  Four  Up-to-date  Baritones 224 

Charles  Santley 224 

Victor  Maurel  .    . 229 

Maurice  Renaud 234 

Ludwig  Wullner    .........  242 


CONTENTS  xui 

PART  III 
GREAT  PIANISTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XIII.  Evolution  of  the  Piano  Virtuoso     ...  253 

XIV.  How  Beethoven  Played  and  Taught    .     .  255 
XV.  Chopin  as  Pianist  and  Teacher    .    .    .    .  262 

XVI.  Liszt  and  His  Pupils 275 

XVII.  Hints  by  Hans  von  Bulow 295 

XVIII.  Rubinstein  the  Leonine 302 

XIX.  Paderewski  and  His  Secrets 309 

PART  IV 

FOUR  TYPES   OF  VIOLINISTS 

XX.  Paganini  and  Kubelik 327 

NiccoLO  Paganini 327 

Jan  Kubelik 334 

XXI.  Remenyi  and  Ole  Bull 338 

Edouard  Remenyi 338 

Ole  Bull 343 

XXII.  Spohr  and  Joachim   . 349 

Louis  Spohr 349 

Joseph  Joachim 351 

[XXIII.  WiLHELMj  and  Kreisler     .    . 357 

August  Wilhelmj 357 

Fritz  Kreisler    ..........  36Q 


xiv  CONTENTS 

PART  V 
TEACHERS,  PARENTS,  AND  PUPILS 

CHAPTER  PAOa 

XXIV.  Some  Famous  Teachers 369 

William  Mason:  An  American  Pioneer  .  369 
Leschetizky,  Paderewski's  Teacher  .  '372 
Ottokar  Sevcik,  Kubelik*s  Teacher  .    .378 

How  Garcia  Helped  Singers      ....  380 

Jean  de  Reszke  as  Teacher 388 

XXV.  Hints  to  Teachers 395 

How  TO  Get  PupilS 395 

Where  to  Locate 397 

How  TO  Retain  Pupils 399 

XXVI.  Advice  to  Parents 405 

XXVII.  Hints  to  Pupils,  Singers  and  Players  .    .411 

Genius,  Work,  and  Overwork    ....  411 

The  Short  Cut  to  Success 415 

Temperament,   Personality,  Magnetism, 

Expression 421 

Tempo  Rubato,  Pedal  and  Accentuation  428 

Singing  Distinctly  and  in  English    .    .  432 

Should  Americans  Study  Abroad?     .    .  434 

Starting  a  Career 440 

Programs,  Encores,  Stage  Fright   .    .    .  445 

A  Few  Health  Hints 449 

XXVIII.  Paderewski  on  Tempo  Rubato      ....  454 

Index 463 


PART  I 
MUSIC,  MONEY,  AND  HAPPINESS 


DOES  MUSIC  PAY? 

Every  year  tens  of  thousands  of  young  women  and 
youths  ask  themselves  the  questions:  *'  Shall  I  choose  music 
as  a  profession?  Will  it  enable  me  to  make  a  living — to 
become  rich,  perhaps,  and  famous  ?  Will  it  insure  me  as 
much  happiness  as  I  would  find  in  some  other  career?" 

At  the  ripe  age  of  seventy-four,  one  of  the  most  success- 
ful and  esteemed  of  modern  artists,  Sir  Charles  Santley, 
wrote  a  book  in  which  he  made  this  confession:  "It  is  a 
generally  received  idea  that  a  singer's  life  is  a  merry  one — 
little  to  do,  storms  of  applause,  topped  up  with  bags  of 
gold,  and  amusement  without  end.  My  experience  does 
not  confirm  that  idea  in  the  least;  my  anticipation  which 
pointed  to  merriment  broke  down  in  the  realization.  No 
gold  nor  amusement  could  repay  the  toil,  worry,  and  dis- 
appointment of  a  singer's  life  as  I  know  it." 

Is  this  the  truth  in  a  nutshell,  or  is  it  simply  the  utter- 
ance of  an  artist  soured  by  old  age  ?  Let  us  look  at  both 
sides  of  the  question,  the  dark  side  first. 

I  once  bought  seventeen  luscious  Bartlett  pears  in  San 
Francisco  for  five  cents.  On  another  occasion  I  read  that 
hundreds  of  bushels  of  choice  ripe  peaches  had  been 
dumped  into  the  ocean,  to  empty  the  boxes.  There  was  an 
overproduction  of  fruit,  and  where  there  is  overproduction 
the  best  is  a  drug  in  the  market. 

In  the  musical  market  there  is  a  deplorable  overproduc- 
tion of  both  singers  and  players.  The  demand  is  for  the 
best  only,  and  even  of  the  best  the  public  easily  gets  a 

3 


4  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

surfeit.  The  others  are  likely  to  agree  with  the  famous 
French  prima  donna,  Desiree-Artot,  that  "the  artistic 
career  is  a  paradise  for  those  who  are  on  top  but  an  in- 
ferno for  the  mediocrities.'^ 

There  is  little  if  any  exaggeration  in  this  dismal  picture 
drawn  by  the  editor  of  the  Musical  Leader  and  Concert- 
Goer:  "Recent  instances  in  and  around  New  York  are 
appalling,  where  well-known  artists  have  been  paid  $io  for 
a  concert  or  recital  appearance,  and  the  singer  who  receives 
$ioo  or  $150  for  a  performance  is  a  rara  avis.  The  or- 
chestral organizations,  the  oratorio  societies  in  New  York 
and  the  outlying  cities,  make  the  claim  that  they  can  obtain 
all  the  artists  needful  because  of  the  good  advertising  such 
appearances  bring.  And  the  larger  the  society  or  club  or 
orchestral  organization  the  smaller  the  amount  paid,  unless 
the  artist  happens  to  be  of  particular  importance.  The 
claim  is  made  that  the  advertisement  of  singing  with  such 
and  such  a  club  more  than  repays  for  the  artist's  time  and 
labor.  Conditions  in  New  York  are  absolutely  outrageous. 
The  'free  list'  is  in  full  blast — in  fact,  is  a  necessity  for  the 
obtaining  of  an  audience — and  in  giving  his  recital  an  artist 
is  bound  to  face  considerable  expenditure  and  no  possi- 
bility of  return." 

Most  of  the  recitals  in  New  York — including  many  by 
prominent  American  and  European  players  and  singers — 
are,  indeed,  given  with  the  full  understanding  that  there  is 
to  be  a  deficit,  but  with  the  hope  that  the  critical  notices  in 
the  metropolitan  journals  will  help  the  artists  in  the  other 
cities.  But  unless  a  musician's  success  is  sensational 
other  cities  will  not  hear  of  it,  and  the  overworked  metro- 
politan critics,  moreover,  do  not  usually  overflow  with 
helpful  enthusiasm. 

Many  years  ago  Mr.  W.  S.  B.  Mathews  wrote  that  Thai- 
berg  and  Gottschalk  could  not  have  given  their  concerts  in 
America  without  the  assistance  of  a  piano  manufacturer 


DOES  MUSIC  PAY?  5 

desirous  of  bringing  his  instruments  before  the  pubh'c. 
This  is  true  to  the  present  day  of  all  but  a  very  few  of  the 
pianists. 

Does  it  follow  from  all  this  that  musicians  should  migrate 
to  Europe  and  remain  there?  Not  if  they  want  money. 
Deplorable  though  the  situation  may  be  in  America,  it  is 
better  than  in  Europe.  The  one  great  ambition  of  every 
European  musician,  in  fact,  is  to  become  sufficiently 
famous  to  receive  a  call  to  the  "  Dollarland."  Even  such 
great  and  sensationally  successful  artists  as  Jenny  Lind  and 
Rubinstein  had  to  come  to  America,  as  will  be  seen  in  later 
chapters,  to  win  the  wealth  which  enabled  them  thence- 
forth to  spend  their  days  as  they  chose. 

Germany  is  generally  considered  the  world's  musical 
head-quarters,  but  it  is  by  no  means  the  paradise  of  musi- 
cians. Charles  Booth  asserts  in  his  book,  The  Life  and 
Labor  of  the  People  of  London^  that  the  organ-grinders  who 
perambulate  the  streets  of  that  city  earn  from  80  cents 
to  $5  a  day.  Germany  gives  less  encouragement  to  that 
kind  of  musicians;  her  musical  proletariat  is  the  orchestral 
player.  His  average  income  is  about  that  of  the  English 
80-cent-a-day  organ-grinder,  while  $5  a  day  is  a  goal  to 
which  he  cannot  aspire.  The  two  leading  men  in  the 
Royal  Orchestra  of  Berlin  get  about  $1,250  a  year,  but  this 
is  far  above  the  usual  salaries.  The  highest  pay  for  any 
member  of  the  opera  orchestra  in  Vienna  is  3,600  crowns 
($720)  a  year,  or  less  than  $2  a  day.  The  players  in  the 
orchestra  of  the  Hamburg  Stadttheater  get  only  $350  a 
year,  and  in  smaller  cities,  like  Nuremberg,  Wurzburg, 
Rostock,  although  the  musicians  have  to  be  sufficiently 
expert  to  play  Wagner  and  Richard  Strauss,  the  pay  is  from 
$20  to  $2  5  a  month.  "  The  majority  of  German  orchestral 
players,"  says  Paul  Busching,  "belong  to-day  to  the  prole- 
tariat. Many  an  instrumental  player  is,  so  far  as  the 
amount  and  the  certainty  of  his  income  are  concerned,  no 


6  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

better  off  than  a  dock  laborer  on  the  Hamburg  quays  or  a 
day  laborer  in  the  building  trades."  There  are  50,000  of 
these  players  in  Germany.  As  regards  the  independent 
musicians,  a  canvas  made  in  Berlin  showed  that  twenty-six 
per  cent,  of  them  do  not  earn  $12.50  a  month,  and  forty-five 
per  cent,  do  not  earn  $15. 

Equally  dismal  is  the  situation  of  the  women  and  men 
who  sing  in  the  chorus  of  the  German  opera-houses.  In 
sixty-four  of  these  theatres  the  male  members  receive  a 
monthly  salary  of  from  $18.75  to  ^45  >  while  the  women  get 
from  $18.75  to  $37.50.  Docking  of  salary  is,  moreover,  a 
usual  punishment. 

These,  to  be  sure,  are  the  private  soldiers  in  the  musical 
army.  The  officers,  surely,  are  better  paid?  Some  of 
them,  yes.  There  are  a  few  eminent  conductors,  like 
Nikisch,  Mottl,  Weingartner,  who  earn  up  to  $25,000  a 
year,  by  working  like  beavers,  travelling  from  city  to  city; 
but  the  average  German  conductor  in  a  provincial  opera- 
house  gets  only  $30  to  $50  a  month;  yet  the  supply  of  men 
willing  to  work  for  such  an  income  far  exceeds  the  demand. 
When  the  city  of  Ratibor  advertised  for  a  conductor,  there 
were  140  applicants  for  the  place,  and  50  of  these  were 
university  graduates.  Hermann  Ritter,  who  mentions  this 
case,*  comes  to  this  conclusion  after  a  thorough  study  of 
the  subject:  **If  parents  ask  me  whether  I  would  consider 
it  advisable  to  let  their  son  become  a  musician  I  answer: 
*Do  not  let  him,  if  you  can  prevent  it;  for  the  career  of  a 
musician  has  more  of  the  dark  than  of  the  bright  side  of 
life.' "  A  shoemaker  who  knows  his  business  will  be  better 
off,  he  adds. 

Soloists,  with  very  few  exceptions,  fare  no  better;  indeed, 
they  fare  worse,  for  while  the  orchestral  players  and  choris- 

*  Ueher  die  materielle  U7td  sociale  Lage  des  Orchester-Musikers.  Bro- 
chures on  the  same  subject  have  also  been  written  by  Paul  Marsop  and 
Heinrich  Waltz. 


DOES  MUSIC  PAY?  7 

ters  at  least  get  a  pittance,  the  givers  of  recitals  usually  get 
nothing — in  fact,  as  a  rule,  a  recital  takes  money  out  of 
their  pockets.  Among  the  clippings  before  me  is  one  which 
reads:  "Berlin  is  frequently  afflicted  with  as  many  as 
40,  50,  or  more  concerts  in  one  week.  There  are  three 
concert  bureaus  in  the  city.  One  of  these  has  on  its  books 
490  musicians,  including  103  pianists,  86  violinists,  85 
sopranos,  53  tenors,  etc.  Eighteen  employees  are  needed 
to  take  care  of  all  these  'artists.'" 

This  was  written  some  years  ago.  To-day  the  situation 
is  wc«-se.  During  the  season  1907-8  Berlin  had  some  1,200 
concerts.  Dr.  Leopold  Schmidt,  the  critic  of  the  Tagehlatty 
on  discovering  that  he  had  54  concerts  to  cover  in  one  week 
in  October,  indulged  in  these  pessimistic  reflections:  *'We 
have  reached  a  crisis.  The  concerts  are  eating  one  an- 
other up,  like  the  two  lions  of  the  well-known  tale.  They 
take  away  one  another's  public,  profits,  and  every  chance  to 
secure  attention  and  success,  and  finally  not  even  the  tail 
remains,  in  the  form  of  critical  notices." 

The  same  journal  tefls  how  the  audiences  at  recitals  are 
apt  to  be  made  up.  Miss  X,  who  plays  or  sings,  sends  out 
about  200  tickets,  some  of  them  to  prominent  persons. 
One  of  these  is  the  wife  of  Professor  N.  She  kindly  ac- 
cepts the  tickets,  but  has  no  intention  of  attending  the  con- 
cert, so  she  gives  them  to  her  dressmaker,  who  in  turn  be- 
stows them  on  her  assistants,  who  perhaps  go  to  the  con- 
cert. In  one  case  it  was  found  that  of  the  200  free  tickets 
only  47  were  used. 

In  other  German  cities  there  are  fewer  recitals,  but  also 
fewer  still  who  are  interested  in  them.  The  well-known 
German  composer,  Hans  Pfitzner,  gave  a  recital  of  his  own 
songs  in  Cologne  for  which  not  a  single  ticket  was  sold. 
Commenting  on  this  occurrence,  a  correspondent  wrote  to 
the  Frankfurter  Zeitung:  "That  Cologne  has  no  public  for 
concerts  has  long  been  known.     No  less  a  man  than  Anton 


8  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

Rubinstein  once  gave  a  concert  here  to  empty  seats.  Last 
Wednesday  we  had  a  concert  by  the  well-known  Flonzaley 
Quartet,  which  was  well  attended;  but  the  number  of 
those  who  paid  for  their  tickets  was  three." 

Next  to  Germany,  Italy  is  considered  the  most  musical 
country  in  Europe.  Are  the  prospects  for  musicians  better 
there?  Quite  the  contrary.  Piano,  violin,  and  song  re- 
citals are  practically  eliminated,  the  Italian  interest  in 
music  being  monopolized  by  the  opera.  Nor  does  the 
opera  flourish  there  as  it  used  to.  The  emoluments  paid 
to  singers  are  so  low  that  all  the  best  ones  are  enticed  away 
by  the  higher  prices  paid  in  New  York  and  South  American 
cities.  The  situatk)n  is  summed  up  in  the  words  of  Leon- 
cavallo when  he  was  asked  if  his  Roland  was  to  be  given  in 
his  native  country:  "Three  good  singers  are  required  for 
this  opera,  and  with  the  voices  we  have  at  present  here  in 
Italy  I  would  not  dare  to  present  myself  to  the  fastidious 
opera-goers  of  Milan  or  Turin."  Yet  the  American  or  Eng- 
lish singers  who  fancy  that  this  dearth  might  prove  their 
opportunity  will  be  sadly  disappointed,  for  reasons  that 
will  be  touched  upon  in  the  chapter  on  studying  abroad. 

Paris  used  to  be  a  good  place  for  recitals,  but  for  reasons 
unexplained  even  the  greatest  soloists  now  fail  to  entice  the 
French  to  the  concert  halls.  Prejudice  against  soloists  is 
sometimes  manifested  by  hisses  even  at  the  well-patron- 
ized orchestral  Sunday  concerts.  Apart  from  these,  the 
Parisian  appetite  is  appeased  chiefly  by  opera;  and  the 
operatic  artists  are  far  from  being  overpaid,  according  to 
American  or  English  ideas.  The  highest  salary  at  the 
Op^ra  goes  to  the  tenor  Alvarez,  who  gets  $i,6oo  a 
month;  the  leading  soprano,  Mme.  Brdval,  has  $1,500  a 
month,  while  the  salaries  of  the  other  singers  range  from 
$17,000  a  year  down  to  $300.  At  the  Op^ra  Comique  the 
salaries  are  much  lower  than  at  the  Grand  Op^ra.  Chorus 
singers  in  the  Parisian  opera-houses  get  $300  a  year. 


DOES  MUSIC  PAY?  9 

"Are  organists  lunatics?"  is  the  suggestive  heading  of 
an  article  in  the  London  Truth,  in  which  the  case  is  re- 
corded of  a  church  position  worth  ;^5o  a  year  for  which 
there  were  140  applicants.  One  of  the  favorite  topics  of 
Sir  John  Stainer  was  the  poverty  of  the  British  organist, 
due  inevitably  to  overproduction.  The  highest  cathedral 
salary  is  ;£3oo  a  year,  and  there  are  some  at  ;^2oo;  "but 
these  are  the  plums  of  the  profession."  In  the  smaller 
churches  from  ;;£2o  to  £40  a  year  is  paid  the  organist.  "  An 
organ-grinder  probably  earns  as  much.  It  really  seems 
strange  that  parents  should  waste  their  money  and  the  time 
of  their  sons  on  a  profession  so  hopelessly  overstocked." 
Orchestral  players  are  somewhat  better  off,  getting  £7^  to 
£6  per  week.  As  regards  recitals  by  singers  and  players, 
the  situation  is  summed  up  in  one  sentence:  ''The  whole 
business  is  frightfully  overdone."  The  Telegraph  gave 
figures  indicating  that  during  1907  there  were  1,500  con- 
certs in  London — an  average  of  about  29  every  week; 
which  indicates  that  the  situation  is  even  worse  than  in 
Berlin.  The  receipts  equal  the  expenditures  in  very  few 
cases.  Deadheads,  too,  are  becoming  harder  to  get,  and  it 
may  soon  be  necessary  to  provide  also  car  fares  and  ice- 
cream or  lemonade  to  make  them  accept  free  tickets. 

Speaking  of  British  composers,  Alfred  Kalisch  wrote  in 
the  London  World:  ''It  would  not  be  wide  of  the  mark  to 
say  that  every  one  of  the  musicians  whose  works  have  been 
heard  or  are  going  to  be  heard  (with  the  exception  of  Sir 
Edward  Elgar)  is  out  of  pocket  by  the  performance. 
There  is  an  eminent  composer  who  is  reported  to  have  de- 
clared that  as  soon  as  he  has  made  a  clear  profit  of  £^0  by 
his  works  he  will  cease  composing.  As  he  is  still  on  the 
active  list  (luckily)  we  may  assume  that  his  modest  ambi- 
tion has  not  yet  been  achieved — and  he  is  one  of  the  most 
eminent." 

Let  us  now  look  at  the  other  side  of  the  shield. 


10  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

Undoubtedly  the  vast  majority  of  musicians  have  a  hard 
time  of  it  in  this  world.  They  are  overworked  and  under- 
paid. But  is  not  the  same  true  of  every  other  profession, 
every  other  employment  ?  The  average  earnings  of  music 
teachers  in  America  are  fully  equal  to  the  earnings  of  other 
teachers,  in  the  public  schools.  It  has  been  ascertained 
that  in  a  list  including  467  American  cities  there  were 
53,554  positions  with  annual  salaries  of  $600  and  over, 
besides  14,193  of  $500  to  $600;  and  Commissioner  W.  T. 
Harris  has  remarked  that  *'no  teacher  has  a  right  to  com- 
plain, on  a  socialistic  basis,  if  he  is  receiving  a  salary  for  his 
annual  services  of  $600." 

There  are  in  the  United  States  perhaps  a  hundred 
physicians  who  earn  $50,000  or  more  a  year.  Concerning 
the  rest,  a  writer  in  Harpefs  Weekly  estimates  that  "the 
average  earnings  of  qualified  and  certified  doctors  of 
medicine  in  the  United  States  do  not  exceed  $600  a  year. 
Nor  are  the  United  States  exceptional,"  he  adds,  "as  re- 
gards the  inadequate  pay  of  the  medical  profession.  Un- 
doubtedly in  a  great  capital  like  Berlin,  doctors  earn  more 
on  an  average  than  they  do  in  the  minor  cities  of  Germany, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  small  towns  and  rural  districts.  Yet 
statistics  show  that  of  the  2,060  medical  practitioners  in 
Berlin,  54  earn  from  $225  to  $260  a  year,  261  from  $260 
to  $525,  and  206  from  $525  to  $750.  Of  practitioners  earn- 
ing from  $750  to  $1,250  there  are  286;  and,  in  the  case 
of  924  practitioners,  the  income  exceeds  that  last-men- 
tioned sum.  In  Italy  the  average  income  of  the  poor-law 
medical  officer,  who  is  not  allowed  to  engage  in  medical 
practice,  is  $500  a  year.  In  Belgium  the  earnings  of  coun- 
try doctors  range  from  $400  to  $2,000  a  year." 

From  the  foregoing  it  will  be  seen  that  the  average 
physician  in  prosperous  America  earns  only  $300  more  in  a 
year  than  an  operatic  chorus  singer  does  in  five  months. 
"Why,"  says  the  writer  just  quoted,  "should  a  young  man 


DOES  MUSIC  PAY?  ii 

or  a  young  woman  want  to  be  a  doctor  in  these  days,  un- 
less, indeed,  he  or  she  is  impelled  by  an  irresistible  attrac- 
tion to  the  calling?"  Why,  indeed?  Why  should  a  young 
man  or  a  young  woman  want  to  engage  in  any  profession 
whatsoever  in  these  days?  All  are  equally  overstocked; 
in  all,  those  who  earn  over  $600  a  year  are  the  lucky  ex- 
ceptions.* 

Fortunately  there  is  such  a  thing  as  Hope  implanted  in 
most  mortals.  Hope  keeps  the  world  on  the  move. 
There  is  always  room  on  top;  of  that  there  is  no  doubt; 
and  we  all  hope  to  arrive  at  the  top.  Those  who  have 
reached  it  are  prosperous.  There  are  some  music  teachers 
in  New  York  and  elsewhere  who  earn  from  $20,000  to 
$30,000  a  year;  there  are  many  who  earn  from  $3,000  to 
$5,000.  In  London,  Paris,  Berlin,  and  smaller  cities  there 
are  wealthy  music  teachers. 

Paderewski's  receipts  on  his  first  American  tour  were 
$95,000;  on  his  second,  $160,000;  on  his  third,  $248,000; 
and  similar  sums  came  to  him  during  his  subsequent  tours. 
This,  to  be  sure,  represents  the  climax  of  pianistic  achieve- 
ment; but  Liszt,  Rubinstein,  Thalberg,  and  other  players 
of  the  past  earned  fortunes,  while  among  those  of  the 
present  may  be  further  named  Josef  Hofmann,  who  has  in 
Russia  and  Mexico  the  same  $5,000  houses  that  Paderewski 
has  in  the  cities  of  the  United  States  and  England.  Kube- 
lik  made  half  a  million  dollars  with  his  violin  in  a  few  years. 

Famous  singers  have  at  all  times  earned  fabulous  sums. 
Pages  of  names  and  figures  might  be  cited  in  support  of 
this  assertion,  but  a  few  instances  may  suffice  here;  further 
details  will  be  supplied  in  the  section  devoted  to  the  careers 

*  The  fact  that  trained  nurses  get  $25  a  week  for  their  service  and  $35 
for  contagious  cases  tempts  many  young  women.  But  in  the  words  of 
the  New  York  Sun:  "The  usual  rule  is  that  the  nurse  lasts  only  about  a 
dozen  years,  that  she  has  saved  no  money  to  speak  of  [not  being  em- 
ployed all  the  time],  that  she  has  had  a  career  of  great  hardship,  and  that 
she  must  either  marry  or  seek  some  other  calling." 


12  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

of  successful  singers.  Catalani,  a  century  ago,  found  it 
easy  to  make  $80,000  a  year.  Malibran  got  80,000  francs 
for  a  short  season  in  Naples;  in  London  she  had  ^^125  per 
night;  in  1833  she  wrote  to  her  manager  that  she  would 
accept  his  offer  to  sing  Sonnambula  in  English  once,  but 
demanded  ;£25o,  ''payable  on  the  morning  of  the  represen- 
tation." Pasta  got  80,000  rubles  (equal  in  our  money 
to-day  to  $60,000)  for  eight  performances  in  St.  Petersburg. 
In  the  same  city  Rubini  took  in  54,000  francs  at  a  single 
concert.  Tamagno  once  got  640,000  francs  (gold)  for 
forty  appearances  in  South  America;  he  left  his  daughter  a 
fortune;  yet  this  tenor's  earnings  were  a  trifle  compared 
with  those  of  Caruso,  who  has  a  sure  $150,000  a  year. 
Italian  tenors  of  less  repute — Zenatello,  Bonci,  Bassi 
Masini — have  costly  villas  in  picturesque  localities  in  their 
country.  The  highest-paid  tenor  of  our  time  was  Jean  de 
Reszke,  who  often  got  $3,000  for  an  evening's  work.  Of 
all  prima  donnas  Patti  got  the  highest  emoluments;  these 
amounted,  in  America,  to  $5,000  a  performance — always 
in  advance — and  sometimes  a  percentage  in  addition.  For 
single  concerts,  however,  Jenny  Lind  surpassed  her. 
Many  of  the  German  and  French  prima  donnas,  tenors, 
baritones,  and  basses  might  be  mentioned  among  the 
wealthy  individuals  of  their  country.  English  and  Ameri- 
can readers  need  not  be  reminded  of  the  vast  sums  earned 
by  such  favorites  of  the  day  as  Sembrich,  Melba,  Nordica, 
Eames,  Schumann-Heink,  Gadski,  Lilli  Lehmann,  Ger- 
aldine  Farrar,  Calvd,  Tetrazzini,  Ternina,  who  earn  be- 
tween $50,000  and  $100,000  or  more  a  year,  getting  $1,000 
to  $2,000  for  each  operatic  performance  and  similar  sums 
for  singing  at  the  musicales  of  millionaires.  Sembrich 
probably  averages  $5,000  at  her  song  recitals  in  New  York. 
Caruso  has  made  as  much  as  $200,000  in  one  year, 
$55,000  of  which  was  for  singing  into  one  of  the  talking 
machines. 


DOES  MUSIC  PAY?  13 

So  great,  indeed,  are  the  emoluments  of  many  musical 
artists  to-day  that  we  often  hear  an  outcry  that  they  are 
overpaid.  Maybe  they  are  overpaid,  but  what  of  it  if  it 
pays  to  overpay  them?  Many  authors,  one  might  say, 
have  been  overpaid — among  them  Gladstone,  Tennyson, 
Kipling,  the  author  of  Ben-Hur,  and  most  writers  of  "best 
sellers" — yet  the  publishers  found  that  it  was  profitable 
to  overpay  them.* 

While  some  artists  received  high  prices  a  century  or  more 
ago,  the  average  pay  of  singers  and  players  has  gone  up 
steadily.  For  instance,  at  the  Imperial  Opera  in  Vienna, 
in  our  day,  the  tenor  Winkelmann  has  received  $10,000  a 
year,  the  baritone  Reichmann  $8,800,  and  Frl.  Renaud 
$7,200;  while  Frau  Schlager  advanced  in  fifteen  years 
from  the  $10  a  month  she  got  as  a  chorus  girl  to  $8,000  a 
year.  Half  a  century  earlier  (as  Julius  Stern  attests  in  his 
Funfzig  Jahre  Hoftheater)  the  leading  singers  at  the  same 
institution  received  only  about  $2,400  a  year;  the  famous 
conductor  Esser  had  $80  a  month !  The  eminent  violinist 
Henri  Vieuxtemps  offered  his  services  as  concert-master 
and  soloist  for  $1,200  a  year,  but  his  offer  was  declined  for 
financial  reasons.  The  members  of  the  orchestra  at  that 
time  got  only  $12.40  a  month. 

In  the  financial  position  of  composers  there  has  also  been 
a  great  improvement.  Every  lover  of  music  is  familiar 
with  the  sad  tale  of  the  poverty,  the  neglect,  the  underpaying 
of  Bach,  Mozart,  Schubert,  Weber,  and  other  great  masters. 
Once  Mozart's  publisher  put  a  few  ducats  in  his  hands  and 
said:  "Compose  in  a  simpler  and  more  popular  style  or  I 
will  print  no  more  of  your  compositions,  nor  will  I  give  you 

*  A  newspaper  writer  asked  a  few  years  ago  whether,  in  view  of  the 
fact  that  the  President  of  the  United  States  is  paid  $137  a  day,  Patti  was 
worth  $5,000  a  night,  Jean  de  Reszke  up  to  $3,000,  and  Paderewski  from 
$2,000  to  $7,000.  To  which  one  might  reply:  Why  not,  if  they  can  get  it? 
If  the  President  of  the  United  States  engages  in  a  pursuit  which  yields 
such  shabby  results,  he  has  no  one  to  blame  but  himself. 


14  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

another  kreutzer."  To  which  Mozart  replied  sadly: 
"Then,  my  good  sir,  I  must  needs  resign  myself  to  die  of 
starvation." 

Schubert's  life  might  have  been  saved  had  he  had  a  few 
florins  to  leave  Vienna — as  he  was  eager  to  do — on  the  fatal 
summer  when  he  got  typhoid  fever.  Weber  received  only 
eighty  Friedrichsdor  for  his  Freischutz,  one  of  the  most 
successful  operas  ever  written.  Chopin  was  paid  so  little 
for  his  piano  pieces — which  have  since  enriched  scores 
of  publishers — that  he  had  to  teach  to  make  his  living.  He 
died  in  1849. 

Contrast  with  the  foregoing  some  men  of  our  time. 
Brahms,  who  died  in  1897,  left  his  heirs  about  $100,000. 
Many  other  modern  writers  of  serious  music  have  made 
fortunes.  Among  them  we  may  name  Verdi  (who  made 
millions  by  his  operas  and  $100,000  by  his  Requiem)  y  Am- 
broise  Thomas  (whose  Mignon  brought  him  and  his  libret- 
tist 800,000  francs  at  a  thousand  performances) ,  Massenet, 
Gounod,  Leoncavallo,  Puccini.  Mascagni  has  earned  at 
least  $100,000  with  his  Cavalleria  Rusticana,  and  Leonca- 
vallo probably  nearly  as  much  with  his  /  Pagliacci.  Hum- 
perdinck's  royalties  on  Hansel  and  Gretel  amounted  to 
$50,000  in  a  single  year.  Richard  Strauss's  income  from 
his  operas,  songs,  and  orchestral  works  was  estimated  at  a 
quarter  of  a  million  marks  in  1908,  and  he  expected  to 
double  that  sum  in  a  few  years. 

In  the  realm  of  light  opera  or  operetta,  Offenbach, 
Lecocq,  Audran,  Johann  Strauss,  Suppd,  Milloecker,  Victor 
Herbert,  Lehar,  and  many  others  have  made  fortunes.  Sir 
Arthur  Sullivan  is  said  to  have  made  ;^3o,ooo  a  year  from 
his  operettas  alone.  Regarding  Victor  Herbert,  "common 
report  has  it  that  his  income  is  as  much  as  $10,000  a  week 
for  extended  periods,"  says  Mr.  Lewis  M.  Isaacs.* 

*  See  his  "The  Musician  as  a  Money-Maker,"  in  The  Bookman  for 
January,  1909. 


DOES  MUSIC  PAY?  15 

Henry  W.  Savage  claims  that  The  Merry  Widow  is  the 
most  stupendous  financial  and  popular  success  the  theat- 
rical world  has  ever  known.  First  produced  in  Vienna, 
on  December  30,  1905,  it  had  up  to  the  first  of  April, 
1909,  1,503  performances  in  America,  1,365  in  England; 
total  number  of  performances  everywhere,  about  18,000. 
It  had  been  sung  in  422  German,  135  English,  and  154 
American  cities.  It  had  been  translated  into  thirteen  lan- 
guages and  produced  in  thirty  different  countries,  including 
Turkey,  Persia,  Japan,  China,  Hindoostan,  and  Siberia. 
New  York  had  paid  a  million  dollars  to  hear  it  in  one  year; 
Chicago  paid  $364,000  in  twenty-six  weeks;  Boston, 
$250,000  in  eighteen  weeks.  More  than  3,000,000  copies 
of  The  Merry  Widow  waltz  had  been  sold  in  Europe;  and 
in  America  the  music  publishers  sold  $400,000  worth 
of  Merry  Widow  scores  and  selections  in  twenty-three 
months.  Up  to  April  i,  1909,  three  American  com- 
panies played  to  gross  receipts  of  $2,694,000.  Does  music 
pay? 

Probably  the  most  profitable  single  song  ever  published 
was  Listen  to  the  Mocking-Bird,  on  which  the  publishers  are 
said  to  have  realized  $3,000,000.  The  composer  of  it,  Sep- 
timus Winner,  sold  it  for  $35.  A  royalty  of  ten  per  cent, 
would  have  yielded  him  $300,000.  Arditi  got  only  $250 
for  his  famous  Kiss  Waltz,  which  brought  the  publisher 
who  bought  it  a  fortune  of  $80,000.  To-day  composers 
are  usually  wise  enough  to  ask  a  royalty  instead  of  a  lump 
sum.  Thus,  at  five  cents  a  copy,  Eugene  Cowles  got 
$15,750  for  the  315,000  sold  copies  of  his  Forgotten.  Of 
Chaminade's  song.  The  Silver  Ring,  over  200,000  copies 
have  been  sold.  Jaques  Blumenthal,  the  song  writer,  left 
a  fortune  of  $300,000. 

This  list  of  composers,  players,  and  singers  who  have 
earned  fortunes  might  be  increased  indefinitely.  Sar- 
asate's  violin  playing  brought  him  two  million  francs. 


i6  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

John  Philip  Sousa  cannot  touch  anything  without  turning 
it  to  gold.  Kubelik  lives  in  a  castle  and  has  the  income  of 
a  prince.  Everybody  has  a  chance  to  get  rich — except  the 
musical  critic.    And  every  musician  is  glad  he  hasn't! 


n 

ARE  GREAT  ARTISTS  HAPPY? 

When  I  was  a  freshman  at  Harvard,  fresh  from  the 
Oregon  wilderness  and  therefore  easily  amused,  I  used  to 
play  the  violoncello  occasionally  at  one  of  the  Boston 
theatres  as  substitute  for  my  esteemed  teacher,  Wulf  Fries, 
when  he  happened  to  be  playing  sonatas  with  Rubinstein 
(1872)  or  was  otherwise  engaged.  Lydia  Thompson  was, 
in  those  verdant  days,  one  of  my  favorites,  and  it  was  her 
company  that  one  evening  produced  at  that  theatre  a  play, 
the  hero  of  which  is  always  unhappy  no  matter  what  hap- 
pens. Even  when  he  has  at  last  won  his  sweetheart  and 
has  his  arm  around  her  waist,  he  turns  toward  the  audience 
and  exclaims,  in  lugubrious  tones:  "And  yet  I  am  not 
happy." 

Often  have  I  thought  of  that  "and  yet  I  am  not  happy" 
in  reading  about  or  talking  with  famous  artists  of  the 
musical  persuasion.  In  1876  I  attended  the  first  Bayreuth 
Festival.  Wagner  was  anything  but  happy  on  that  occa- 
sion. It  is  true,  the  grand  project  which  had  busied  his 
mind  more  than  twenty  years  had  at  last  been  realized. 
He  had  his  own  opera-house,  just  where  he  wanted  it;  he 
had  his  devoted  band  of  players  and  singers,  selected  by 
himself;  and  among  the  spectators  were  an  emperor,  a 
king,  and  many  notabilities  in  the  realms  of  art  and  litera- 
ture, while  the  whole  musical  world  had  its  eyes  on  him. 
But  in  reality  few  of  the  singers  were  quite  equal  to  their 
tasks,  and  he  had  not  had  enough  money  to  make  the  stage 
settings  satisfactory,  the  consequence  being  that  he  suf- 

17 


i8  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

fered  tortures.  A  mishap  to  the  scenery  during  the  per- 
formance of  RJieingold  distressed  him  so  that  he  left  the 
theatre  and  went  home. 

To  Liszt  he  once  wrote:  ''None  of  the  past  years  has 
gone  by  without  having  at  least  once  driven  me  to  the  verge 
of  suicide."  In  another  letter  he  said :  '*  Oh  that  I  might 
not  arise  from  my  bed  to-morrow,  awake  no  more  to  this 
loathsome  life."  And  Liszt  replied:  "Your  letters  are  sad 
— and  your  life  sadder  still.  Your  greatness  constitutes 
also  your  misery — the  two  are  united  inseparably  and  must 
forever  harass  and  torture  you." 

When  I  gathered  the  material  for  my  biography  of 
Wagner,  I  found  so  much  that  bore  on  his  unhappiness 
that  I  devoted  a  special  chapter  of  ten  pages  to  it,  under  the 
heading  of  "A  Modern  Prometheus."  Similar  chapters 
might  be  written  about  other  great  masters.  Few  of  them 
obtained  what  is  generally  considered  essential  to  an  artist's 
happiness — the  recognition  of  their  genius  by  their  con- 
temporaries. 

Among  the  few  singers  at  Bayreuth  who  approximated 
Wagner's  ideal  was  Materna.  Admired  and  applauded  by 
all  lovers  of  dramatic  song,  her  fame  was  proclaimed  on  two 
continents.  1  had  met  her  abroad,  and  when  Theodore 
Thomas  engaged  her,  with  Winkelmann  and  Scaria,  for  a 
Wagner  festival  in  New  York,  I  went  down  the  harbor  and 
boarded  the  steamer  to  get  her  impressions  of  America  be- 
fore she  had  landed,  in  accordance  with  our  charming  cus- 
tom. While  we  were  conversing,  the  Brooklyn  Bridge  hove 
into  sight.  When  I  told  her,  among  other  things,  that  that 
bridge  had  cost  $14,000,000,  she  exclaimed,  "Fifty-six 
million  marks !  If  I  had  that  much  money  I  should  never 
sing  again." 

I  was  surprised  at  this  speech,  for  I  had  fancied  that  to 
be  the  acknowledged  queen  of  Wagnerian  song  was  cause 
enough  for  superlative  happiness — a  happiness  which  must 


ARE  GREAT  ARTISTS  HAPPY?  19 

find  its  supreme  satisfaction  in  the  exercise  of  her  gift  of 
song.  Noticing  the  expression  of  surprise  in  my  face,  she 
added,  with  a  smile:  "At  any  rate,  I  should  sing  only  once 
in  a  while,  in  some  favorite  role." 

One  of  the  finest  operatic  voices  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury was  that  of  Emil  Fischer.  His  song  seemed  as  spon- 
taneous as  a  bird's,  and  to  hear  him  sing  the  genial  part  of 
Hans  Sachs,  for  instance,  was  to  get  the  impression  that  he 
was  having  as  good  a  time  as  his  audience.  And  yet  he  was 
not  happy.  He  told  me  one  day  that  he  never  really  en- 
joyed singing,  even  when  he  most  seemed  to. 

One  of  Emma  Calve's  favorite  topics  of  conversation  is 
to  warn  young  girls  not  to  take  to  the  stage  for  fame  or  a 
living.  She  assures  them  that  their  dreams  are  a  mere 
illusion,  and  that  they  will  not  find  true  happiness  on  the 
stage — not  such  happiness  as  awaits  them  if  they  will  get 
married,  darn  stockings,  and  bring  up  children.  I  have 
heard  Lillian  Nordica  talking  in  a  similar  strain;  but  she 
has  now,  she  says,  stopped  giving  advice  on  the  subject,  as 
it  is  useless. 

Every  pianist  in  the  universe  envies  Paderewski  his  un- 
precedented popularity  and  success.  No  other  pianist,  not 
even  Liszt  or  Rubinstein,  ever  could  earn  #  quarter  of  a 
million  dollars  in  five  months,  as  he  has  done.  But  is 
Paderewski  happy  while  he  is  earning  these  $250,000  ?  He 
envies  every  bootblack  or  loafing  policeman.  To  travel 
20,000  miles  in  a  few  months;  to  sleep — or  rather  not  to 
sleep — every  night  in  a  Pullman  car  or  a  wretched  hotel, 
always  near  a  noisy  railway  station;  to  repeat  the  same 
pieces  over  and  over  again;  to  feel  compelled  to  play, 
whether  he  wants  to  or  not,  and  when  he  is  almost  dead 
from  exhaustion;  to  know  that  savage  critics  and  envious 
rivals  are  always  watching  intently  to  discover  any  slight 
flaw  in  his  performance  and  put  it  under  a  microscope;  to 
feel  that  noblesse  oblige — that  he  must  always  try  to  be  at  his 


20  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

best — these  things  are  not  calculated  to  make  a  pianist 
happy. 

Rubinstein  found  the  American  tour  so  irksome  that  no 
sum  could  ever  tempt  him  to  repeat  it.  With  the  exception 
of  Liszt,  no  pianist  had  ever  been  so  admired,  flattered,  re- 
warded, extolled.  And  yet  he  was  not  happy.  In  the  last 
years  of  his  life  he  was  as  sour  as  a  crab-apple.  To  praise 
him  as  a  pianist  was  to  annoy  rather  than  to  please  him. 
He  knew  he  was  more  than  a  pianist — a  great  composer; 
and  to  see  his  pet  aversion,  Richard  Wagner,  become  more 
and  more  popular,  while  he  himself  was  neglected,  made 
him  the  unhappiest  of  mortals. 

When  Liszt  was  asked  to  write  his  life  he  replied:  "It 
was  enough  to  live  it." 

Tchaikovsky  once  wrote  to  a  friend:  "Regretting  the 
past,  trusting  the  future,  and  dissatisfied  with  the  present — 
such  is  my  life." 

Shall  we  then  conclude  that  great  composers,  players, 
and  singers  are  necessarily  unhappy  ? 

It  seems  difficult  to  avoid  this  conclusion.  Arthur  Her- 
vey  has  expressed  the  opinion  that  music  is  probably  the 
most  disheartening  of  the  arts,  partly  because  of  its  eva- 
nescence. It  would  be  easy  to  pile  up  facts  in  support  of 
that  assertion.  A  composer  who  has  something  new  to  say 
is  almost  sure  to  be  misunderstood  at  first  and  to  have  a 
hard  struggle  before  he  can  overcome  the  indifference  of 
the  public  and  the  hostility  of  the  professionals.  Then,  if 
he  is  lucky — and  not  many  are  lucky — he  has  a  few  years, 
or  possibly  a  few  decades,  of  popularity,  which  shortly  is 
followed  by  indifference,  neglect,  oblivion.  Most  operas 
live  about  a  week.  Even  the  successful  ones  average  only 
a  few  decades.  Of  the  concert  pieces  written,  probably 
one  or  two  in  a  hundred  are  played  more  than  once. 

It  would  be  hard  to  find  anything  more  disheartening 
than  a  glance  at  the  index  of  Riemann's  history  of  music  in 


ARE  GREAT  ARTISTS  HAPPY?  21 

the  nineteenth  century.  It  contains  39  columns  of  names, 
about  2,300  akogether,  mostly  of  composers.  Of  these 
2,300  names  how  many  are  we  likely  to  see  during  the  com- 
ing season  in  the  repertory  of  our  opera-houses  or  on  our 
concert  programmes  ?  Not  fifty.  What  has  become  of  the 
other  2,250?  Alack  and  alas !  Time  has  swallowed  them 
in  its  abysmal  maw. 

This  is  only  one  aspect  of  the  question.  If  even  the  com- 
posers, who  fondly  imagine  they  are  writing  for  all  time,  are 
so  ephemeral,  what  shall  we  say  about  singers  and  players, 
who  are  seldom  at  their  best  and  popular  more  than  twenty 
or  thirty  years,  and  whose  art  of  necessity  vanishes  with 
them  ?  And  what  about  the  critics,  and  the  teachers,  and 
all  the  others  who  devote  their  lives  to  music  ?  Are  they 
not  doomed  to  be  promptly  forgotten  ? 

Speaking  of  singers  who  outlived  their  fame,  Mr.  Joseph 
Bennett  says:  *'To  be  unknown  among  favorites  of  a  later 
day,  to  be  forgotten  by  the  public  who  once  worshipped,  is 
an  experience  sharper  than  any  serpent's  tooth.  I  do  not 
know  that  Clara  Novello  ever  writhed  with  the  keenness  of 
it,  but  I  have  seen  tears  of  pain  in  the  eyes  of  others,  and 
hers  may  not  have  been  far  away." 

Is  music  a  disheartening  art? 

No  more  than  any  other  art  or  profession.  Everything 
just  said  about  music  and  musicians  can  be  repeated  about 
literature.  Do  not  the  magazine  editors  tell  us  that  they 
can  accept  only  one  or  two  of  every  hundred  manuscripts 
offered  to  them,  and  do  not  the  publishers  say  that  books — 
even  successful  ones — seldom  live  more  than  one  year, 
most  of  them,  in  fact,  being  in  vogue  not  much  longer  than 
each  successive  issue  of  a  magazine  ?  What  becomes  of  all 
the  rejected  manuscripts  and  books  ?  How  many  shattered 
hopes  do  they  represent  ?    Is  it  not  disheartening  ? 

And  think  of  the  journalists — tens  of  thousands  of  them, 
in  America  and  in  Europe!    Their  work,  from  its  very 


22  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

nature,  is  ephemeral.  Indeed,  the  best  journalist  is  he 
whose  articles  are  so  peculiarly  timely  at  the  moment  they 
are  printed  that  they  fade  a  few  days  later,  like  cut  flowers. 

In  being  dissatisfied  with  their  lot  and  often  unhappy, 
artists  do  not  differ  from  other  mortals.  The  doctor  is  apt 
to  think  he  would  have  been  happier  as  a  lawyer,  and  vice 
versa — a  truth  already  commented  on  by  the  old  Roman 
Horace.  When  I  first  became  a  musical  critic  I  thought  I 
was  in  paradise.  Going  to  concerts  and  operas  had  always 
been  my  favorite  amusement,  and  now  I  was  to  be  paid  for 
hearing  operas  and  concerts,  and  have  an  extra  ticket  be- 
sides for  some  charming  companion!  What  could  be 
more  delightful  ?  That  was  twenty-eight  years  ago.  To- 
day most  concerts  and  operas  are  such  awful  bores  to 
me  that  I  find  it  hard  to  praise  anything,  and  only  genius 
arouses  my  interest.  I  would  gladly  give  my  $150  worth 
of  free  tickets  a  week  for  a  chance  to  live  and  work  on  a 
California  ranch.  Probably  after  a  few  years  on  the  ranch 
I  should  wish  I  had  my  tickets  back! 

Dryden  has  shown  in  eight  eloquent  lines  that  in  their 
attitude  toward  happiness  musicians  do  not  differ  from 
other  mortals: 

When  I  consider  life,  'tis  all  a  cheat, 
Yet,  fool'd  with  hope,  men  favor  the  deceit; 
Trust  on,  and  think  to-morrow  will  repay, 
To-morrow's  falser  than  the  former  day; 
Lies  worse,  and  while  it  says  we  shall  be  blest 
With  some  new  joys,  cuts  off  what  we  possest. 
Strange  cozenage!  none  would  live  past  years  again, 
Yet  all  hope  pleasure  in  what  yet  remain. 

Artists  are,  to  be  sure,  an  irritable  tribe.  More  keenly 
than  others  they  feel  the  gibes  and  wounds  of  life.  But  by 
way  of  compensation,  they  are  thrilled  by  joys  beyond  the 
ken  of  ordinary  mortals.  Does  not  the  composer  enjoy 
the  voluptuous  thrill  of  creating,  and  is  it  not  a  pleasure  for 


ARE  GREAT  ARTISTS  HAPPY?  23 

him — and  for  his  interpreters — to  think  that  thousands  will 
be  exalted  and  refreshed  by  the  products  of  his  inspiration  ? 
Failures  abound  in  all  activities,  and  it  is  unfair  to  lay  them 
up  against  music  in  particular. 

As  for  the  evanescence  of  even  genius,  what  of  it  ?  There 
are  new  flowers  every  spring,  new  autumn  leaves  of  brilliant 
hues  every  September.  We  are  too  vain,  too  much  con- 
cerned with  our  individualities.  As  long  as  we  have  the 
masterworks,  what  matters  it  who  wrote  them? 

If  Dryden  was  right  in  saying  that : 

Pains  of  love  be  sweeter  far 
Than  all  other  pleasures  are, 

the  same  is  true  of  the  pains  of  artistic  endeavor,  creative  or 
interpretative.  As  Schopenhauer  has  remarked:  *'If  we 
look  up  to  a  great  man  of  the  past,  we  do  not  think:  'How 
happy  he  is  to  be  still  admired  by  all  of  us!'  but:  'How 
happy  he  must  have  been  in  the  immediate  enjoyment  of  a 
genius,  remains  of  which  delight  centuries  of  mortals!' 
Not  in  fame,  but  in  the  faculty  wherewith  we  win  it,  lies 
the  true  value,  and  in  the  begetting  of  immortal  offspring 
the  true  enjoyment." 

The  following  short  sketches  of  singers  and  players  will 
bring  before  the  reader's  mind  many  scenes  of  happiness 
resulting  from  the  artistic  activity  and  many  triumphs  such 
as  few  mortals  enjoy. 

Caruso  once  said :  "  When  you  hear  that  an  artist  intends 
to  retire,  don't  you  believe  it,  for  as  long  as  he  keeps  his 
voice  he  will  sing.     You  may  depend  upon  that." 

Regard  Schubert  as  a  model.  No  one  ever  had  more 
reason  than  he  to  be  disheartened.  Nobody  seemed  to 
want  his  songs,  yet  he  continued  writing  them  till -there 
were  nearly  six  hundred.  Hiller  asked  him  one  day:  " Do 
you  write  much?"  and  Schubert  replied:  "I  compose 
every  morning,   and  when  one  piece    is   done  I  begin 


24  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

another."  Lachner  tells  us  regarding  the  same  composer 
that  when  he  had  written  a  piece  or  a  song  and  had  tried  it 
over,  he  put  it  away  and  often  forgot  all  about  it.  This  is 
the  highest  type  of  genius  and  manhood — the  type  which 
does  its  best,  spontaneously  and  inevitably,  and  continues 
doing  it  regardless  of  consequences.  In  proportion  as  we 
approximate  this  type  are  we  useful  in  the  world  of  music, 
be  we  composers,  or  players,  or  singers,  or  critics,  or 
teachers. 

President  Eliot,  of  Harvard  University,  once  said:  " De- 
light in  artistic  work  is  the  greatest  need  of  our  country. 
Great  music  is  great  thought;  no  other  thought  has  such 
perfect  transmission.  Who  gets  such  perfect  interpreta- 
tion of  his  thoughts  as  the  great  composer?  On  this  ac- 
count I  know  of  no  other  profession  in  the  world  which  has 
so  great  a  reward." 


PART  II 
SUCCESSFUL  SINGERS 


Ill 

TWO  SWEDISH  NIGHTINGALES 
Jenny  Lind 

Jenny  Lind  was  fond  of  sewing,  and  we  have  the  testi- 
mony of  her  maid  regarding  the  quality  of  her  work. 
"Madame's  stitches,"  she  said,  "never  come  out." 

There  have  been  plenty  of  girls  with  voices  as  beautiful 
as  Jenny  Lind's.  Why  did  they  fail  to  duplicate  her  suc- 
cess as  a  singer  ?  Chiefly  because  they  had  not  the  char- 
acter, the  perseverance,  the  conscientiousness  to  make 
stitches  that  would  ''never  come  out." 

To  a  student  of  music  nothing  could  be  more  interesting 
and  instructive  than  the  story  of  Jenny  Lind's  life.  It 
illustrates  nearly  every  phase  in  the  career  of  a  public  singer 
regarding  which  the  student  desires  information,  and  offers 
many  hints  of  inestimable  value  to  those  preparing  for  a 
professional  life. 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  she  never  carried  out  her  plan  of 
writing  her  autobiography,  which  would  have  doubtless 
proved  a  fascinating  book.  One  of  her  English  friends, 
the  wife  of  the  Bishop  of  Norwich,  once  wrote,  after  giving 
an  enthusiastic  account  of  her  singing,  that,  nevertheless, 
she  would  "rather  hear  Jenny  talk  than  sing." 

Fortunately  there  is  much  that  is  of  biographic  value  in 
her  letters;  and  in  1887,  a  few  months  before  her  death,  she 
told  her  oldest  son  how  her  gift  for  music  came  to  be  dis- 
covered. As  a  child  she  sang  with  every  step  she  took  and 
with  every  jump  of  her  childish  feet.     She  had  a  cat  with  a 

27 


28  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

blue  ribbon  round  its  neck,  and  to  this  pet  she  often  sang 
seated  in  a  window  looking  out  on  a  much-frequented 
street  in  Stockholm.  One  day  the  maid  of  a  well-known 
dancer  at  the  Royal  Opera  passed,  and  when  she  got  home 
she  told  her  mistress  that  she  had  never  heard  any  one  sing 
so  beautifully  as  this  girl  sang  to  her  cat.  The  dancer, 
whose  name  was  Lundberg,  sent  for  the  child,  and,  after 
hearing  her,  strongly  advised  her  mother  to  have  her 
trained  for  the  stage.  The  mother  had  a  prejudice  against 
the  stage;  but  she  was  willing  to  have  Jenny  taught  singing, 
and  Miss  Lundberg  sent  her  with  a  letter  of  introduction  to 
the  singing-master  of  the  Royal  Opera,  named  Croelius, 
for  whom  she  sang  a  selection  from  an  opera  by  Winter. 
Croelius  was  moved  to  tears  and  promptly  took  her  to 
Count  Puke,  the  Director  of  the  Opera.  The  Count  at  first 
refused  to  hear  her  because  she  was  so  young  (only  nine), 
and  perhaps  also  because  (as  she  herself  once  wrote  to  the 
editor  of  the  Biografiskl  Lexicon)  she  was  at  the  time  **a 
small,  ugly,  broad-nosed,  shy,  gauche^  altogether  under- 
grown  girl";  but  when  Croelius  said :  ''Well,  if  the  Count 
will  not  hear  her,  then  I  will  teach  her  gratuitously,  and  she 
will  one  day  astonish  you,"  the  director  allowed  her  to  sing 
for  him,  and  he,  too,  was  moved  to  tears. 

The  result  was  that  Jenny  was  accepted  at  once  as  a 
free  pupil,  to  be  taught  singing  and  given  a  general  educa- 
tion at  the  expense  of  the  Swedish  government.  The 
mother  gave  her  consent  reluctantly,  under  the  pressure  of 
poverty.  Jenny's  father  having  contributed  little  toward 
her  support,  she  had  been  keeping  a  day  and  boarding 
school  for  girls.  Thus  it  came  about  that  the  directors  of 
the  theatre  found  a  way  of  paying  for  Jenny's  education  as 
well  as  her  board  and  lodging  while  leaving  her  in  her 
mother's  care.  It  was  understood  that,  in  years  to  come, 
the  young  "actress-pupil"  was  to  ''make  restitution  for  the 
care  and  expense  bestowed  on  her  education." 


JENNY  LIND  29 

For  ten  years  the  Royal  Theatre  at  Stockholm  remained 
the  nursery  of  Jenny  Lind's  talent.  According  to  the  terms 
of  the  contract,  she  was  to  receive,  until  old  enough  to  get  a 
fixed  salary,  "free  tuition  in  singing,  elocution,  dancing, 
and  such  other  branches  as  belong  to  the  education  of  a 
cultivated  woman  and  are  requisite  for  the  theatrical  pro- 
fession." These  ''other  branches,"  for  which  her  mother 
was  made  responsible,  were  "piano,  religion,  French,  his- 
tory, geography,  writing,  arithmetic,  and  drawing." 

Later  in  life  Jenny  Lind  realized  vividly  how  much  the 
value  of  her  musical  talent  had  been  enhanced  by  her  early 
theatrical  and  general  education.  She  especially  "valued 
her  trained  skill  in  expressive  and  beautiful  motion,  gained 
in  the  dancing  school  at  the  Theatre  Royal.  She  moved 
exquisitely.  Her  perfect  walk,  her  dignity  of  pose,  her 
striking  uprightness  of  attitude  were  characteristic  of  her 
to  the  very  last;  and  no  one  can  fail  to  recall  how  she  stood 
before  and  while  she  sang.  Her  grace,  her  lightness  of 
movement  were  all  the  more  noticeable  from  the  rather 
angular  thinness  of  her  natural  figure;  and  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  they  threw  into  her  acting  a  charm  which  was 
positively  entrancing.  She  knew  the  value  and  necessity 
of  all  this  completeness  of  training;  she  felt  its  lack  in  those 
who  had  entered  on  the  operatic  stage  by  accident,  as  it 
were,  taking  it  up  only  when  fully  grown  simply  on  account 
of  possessing  a  beautiful  voice.  She  missed  in  them  the 
full  finish  of  the  perfected  art;  no  beauty  in  the  singing 
could  quite  atone  for  the  ignorance  of  dramatic  methods, 
and  of  all  that  constitutes  the  peculiar  environment  of  the 
stage."* 

It  was  Jenny  Lind's  good  fortune  that  she  also  got  much 
practical  training  on  the  stage  as  an  actress  at  an  age  when 

*  Memoir  of  Jenny  Lind-Goldschmidt.  By  Henry  Scott  Holland  and 
W.  S.  Rockstro.  London:  John  Murray.  New  York:  Charles  Scribner's 
Sons.  1 89 1.     Vol.  I,  pp.  28-29. 


30  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

her  voice  was  not  yet  ripe  for  operatic  work.  She  was  only 
ten  years  old  when  she  made  her  appearance  on  the  boards. 
A  year  and  a  half  later  a  critic  wrote:  "She  shows  in  her 
acting  a  quick  perception,  a  fire  and  feeling,  far  beyond  her 
years,  which  seem  to  denote  an  uncommon  disposition  for 
the  theatre."  In  1834,  her  fourteenth  year  of  age,  she  ap- 
peared on  the  stage  22  times;  in  1835,  26  times;  in  1836, 
18  times.  It  was  in  this  year  that  she  made  her  first  at- 
tempt in  an  operatic  role — Georgette,  in  Lindblad's  Fron- 
dorerne.  In  1837  she  obtained  a  fixed  salary  and  appeared 
no  fewer  than  92  times,  in  twelve  new  characters.  In  1838 
her  performances  were  still,  for  the  most  part,  in  plays, 
without  singing;  but  she  sang  the  part  of  Agatha,  in 
Weber's  Freischutz,  nine  times,  and  in  April,  1839,  she 
abandoned  plays  altogether  and  thenceforth  acted  in  operas 
only. 

It  would  have  been  wiser  if,  in  these  critical  years  of  a 
girl's  bodily  development,  she  had  made  less  use  of  her 
voice,  both  for  singing  and  acting.  But  the  temptation  on 
the  part  of  the  directors  to  make  the  most  of  her  gifts  at  all 
risks  was  great,  and  Jenny  came  near  falling  a  victim  to 
the  deadly  peril  to  which  so  many  aspirants  to  operatic 
honors  succumb.  So  great  was  her  popularity  that,  when 
only  twenty  years  old,  she  was  appointed  court  singer  as 
well  as  a  member  of  the  Royal  Swedish  Academy  of  Music. 
The  directors  of  the  Opera  eagerly  offered  her  the  highest 
sum  at  their  disposal — $750  a  year,  for  a  three  years'  con- 
tract— and  had  she  accepted  the  world  would  have  never 
heard  of  Jenny  Lind,  for  the  overwork  to  which  she  was 
sure  to  be  subjected  would  have  damaged  her  voice  beyond 
the  possibility  of  repair. 

At  this  crisis  her  common  sense  and  artistic  instincts 
came  to  the  rescue.  She  declined  the  offer  of  the  directors 
— or  rather  asked  permission  to  postpone  its  acceptance  a 
year — on  the  ground  that  her  gifts  were  "only  half  devel- 


JENNY  LIND  31 

oped";  and,  in  her  own  words:  "In  order  to  attain  the 
artistic  perfection  open  to  me,  I  have  thought  it  a  duty  to  do 
what  I  can,  and  not  to  draw  back  before  any  sacrifice, 
either  of  youth,  health,  comfort,  or  labor,  not  to  speak  of  the 
modest  sum  I  have  managed  to  save,  in  the  hope  of  reach- 
ing what  may,  perhaps,  prove  an  unattainable  aim.  In 
consequence  I  have  decided  on  a  journey  to,  and  a  sojourn 
at,  some  place  abroad,  which,  through  furnishing  the  finest 
models  in  art,  would  prove  to  me  of  the  greatest  profit." 

Her  plan  was  to  go  to  Paris  and  there  take  lessons  of 
Manuel  Garcia,  the  greatest  singing  teacher  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  One  foolish  thing  she  did  at  this  moment : 
she  gave  a  series  of  concerts  in  provincial  towns,  thus  still 
further  exhausting  her  tired  vocal  organs;  but  she  needed 
the  money  this  brought  her  for  a  year  in  Paris,  and  she  did 
not  know  how  near  she  was  to  the  brink  of  the  precipice. 

She  found  that  out  as  soon  as  she  arrived  in  the  French 
metropolis  and  called  on  the  famous  Spanish  master  with 
the  request  that  he  take  her  as  a  pupil.  At  his  bidding  she 
sang  Perche  non  ho,  from  Lucia,  broke  down  in  the  at- 
tempt, and  he  pronounced  the  crushing  verdict:  "It  would 
be  useless  to  teach  you,  miss;  you  have  no  voice  left." 

With  tears  of  disappointment  in  her  eyes  she  implored 
his  advice.  Could  he  not  bring  back  her  voice  ?  He  knew 
that  such  cases  are  apt  to  be  hopeless;  but  he  felt  sorry  for 
this  poor  girl,  hurled  from  her  Swedish  triumphs  into  the 
abyss  of  despair,  so  he  agreed  to  hear  her  again  in  six  weeks 
if  she  promised  to  speak  during  that  period  as  little  as  pos- 
sible, and  not  to  sing  a  single  note.  This  she  did,  spending 
her  time  studying  French  and  Italian;  and  when  she  re- 
turned to  him  they  were  both  delighted  to  find  that  the 
rest-cure  had  done  some  good.  He  agreed  to  give  her  two 
lessons  a  week,  and  made  it  clear  to  her  that  it  was  not  over- 
work so  much  as  a  faulty  use  of  the  voice  that  had  damaged 
her.     Following  his  instructions,  she  was  soon  able  to  prac- 


32  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

tise  her  exercises  hours  every  day  without  undue  effort  or 
fatigue. 

Her  own  account  of  the  Garcia  lessons,  given  in  letters 
to  friends,  is  instructive.    To  cite  a  few  sentences: 

"I  have  to  begin  again,  from  the  beginning;  to  sing 
scales,  up  and  down,  slowly,  and  with  great  care;  then  to 
practise  the  shake — awfully  slowly;  and,  to  try  to  get  rid  of 
the  hoarseness,  if  possible.  Moreover,  he  is  very  particular 
about  the  breathing.  I  trust  I  have  made  a  happy  choice. 
Anyhow,  he  is  the  best  master;  and,  expensive  enough — 
twenty  francs  for  an  hour.'* 

This  was  written  after  she  had  taken  five  lessons.  In  a 
later  letter  she  said:  **I  am  well  satisfied  with  my  singing- 
master.  With  regard  to  my  weak  points,  especially,  he  is 
excellent.  I  think  it  very  fortunate  for  me  that  there  ex- 
ists a  Garcia."  And  again:  *'My  singing  is  getting  on 
quite  satisfactorily,  now.  I  rejoice  heartily  in  my  voice; 
it  is  clear  and  sonorous,  with  more  firmness,  and  much 
greater  agility." 

These  lessons  continued  ten  months,  and  when  they  ter- 
minated, in  June,  1842,  the  Swedish  pupil  had  gained  full 
control  of  her  vocal  organs.  Ten  months  may  seem  a  very 
short  time,  but  the  pupil  was  Jenny  Lind  and  the  teacher 
was  Manuel  Garcia.  He  recognized  her  weak  points  at 
once  and  was  able  to  tell  her  exactly  what  to  do  to  mend 
them;  while  she  had  that  infinite  capacity  for  taking  pains 
which  has  been  incorrectly  given  as  a  definition  of  genius, 
but  which  is  certainly  the  main  secret  of  success  in  singing 
as  in  everything  else. 

Garcia  once  said  to  the  famous  Parisian  teacher,  Mme. 
Marchesi,  concerning  Jenny  Lind:  "I  do  not  remember 
ever  having  had  a  more  attentive,  intelligent  pupil.  Never 
had  I  to  explain  anything  twice,  but  her  famous  shake  cost 
her  no  end  of  trouble,  and  she  shed  many  tears  over  the 
first  air  from  Lucia  J  ^ 


JENNY  LIND  33 

In  the  letter  to  the  editor  of  the  Swedish  biographic  dic- 
tionary already  referred  to,  Jenny  Lind  says:  ''As  to  the 
greater  part  of  what  I  can  do  in  my  art,  I  have  myself  ac- 
quired it  by  incredible  work,  and  in  spite  of  astonishing 
difficulties;  it  is  from  Garcia  alone  that  I  learned  some  few 
important  things.  To  such  a  degree  had  God  written 
within  me  what  I  had  to  study.  My  ideal  was  (and  is)  so 
high,  that  no  mortal  was  to  be  found  who  in  the  least  degree 
could  satisfy  my  demands;  therefore  I  sing  after  no  one's 
'methode' — only  after  that  of  the  birds  (as  far  as  I  am 
able) ;  for  their  Teacher  was  the  only  one  who  responded  to 
my  requirements  for  truth,  clearness,  and  expression." 

In  these  words  she  indicates  modestly  but  clearly  the 
three  factors  that  had  helped  her  to  success:  hard  work, 
a  good  teacher,  and  the  talent  God  had  given  her.  With- 
out this  talent  the  hardest  work  and  the  best  of  teachers 
could  not  have  helped  her  to  the  eminence  she  attained;  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  her  experience  had  shown  that  hard 
work  and  talent  alone  may  lead  to  shipwreck  unless  an 
expert  pilot  is  engaged  before  it  is  too  late. 

Garcia  was  her  pilot.  He  taught  her  the  technic  without 
which  talent  is  helpless.  He  improved  the  quality  of  her 
voice.  In  the  words  of  one  who  heard  her  after  her  train- 
ing in  Garcia' s  studio,  ''it  had  acquired  a  rich  depth  of 
tone,  a  sympathetic  timbre,  a  bird-like  charm  in  the  silvery 
clearness  of  its  upper  register,  which  at  once  impressed  the 
listener  with  the  feeling  that  he  had  never  before  heard  any- 
thing in  the  least  degree  resembling  it."  The  same  writer 
calls  attention  to  another  all-important  point: 

"One  great  secret — perhaps  the  greatest  of  all — the  key 
to  the  whole  mystery  connected  with  this  perfect  mastery 
over  the  technical  difficulties  of  vocalization — lay  in  the 
fortunate  circumstance  that  Signor  Garcia  was  so  very 
particular  about  the  breathing.  For  the  skilful  manage- 
ment of  the  breath  is  everything,  and  she  attained  the  most 


34  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

perfect  control  over  it.  Gifted  by  nature  with  compara- 
tively limited  sustaining  power,  she  learned  to  fill  the  lungs 
with  such  dexterity  that,  except  with  her  consent,  it  was 
impossible  to  detect  either  the  moment  at  which  the  breath 
was  renewed  or  the  method  by  which  the  action  was 
accomplished." 

To  sum  it  up  in  one  sentence:  "She  was  born  an  artist, 
and,  under  Garcia's  guidance,  had  now  become  a  virtuosa^^ 
— a  complete  mistress  of  her  art. 

Let  it  not  be  supposed  for  a  moment  that  she  fancied 
Garcia  had  given  the  finishing  touches  to  her  training. 
To  the  end  of  her  career  she  continued  to  overcome 
"astonishing  difficulties"  by  "incredible  work."  Mme. 
Birch- Pfeiffer  relates  that  one  day  she  left  the  prima  donna 
practising  the  difficult  word  "zersplittre,"  and  when  she  re- 
turned several  hours  later  she  found  her  still  wrestling  with 
the  same  word.  By  dint  of  such  perseverance  she  learned 
to  pronounce  any  word,  in  any  language  she  knew,  with 
perfect  ease  and  distinctness,  on  any  note,  high  or  low. 

Her  voice  was  not  naturally  flexible.  "The  rich,  sus- 
tained tones  of  the  soprano  drammatico,^*  her  biographers 
tell  us,  "were  far  more  congenial  to  it  than  the  rapid  execu- 
tion which  usually  characterizes  the  lighter  class  of  soprano 
voices.  But  this  she  also  attained  by  almost  superhuman 
labor.    Her  perseverance  was  indefatigable. ' ' 

The  problem  of  making  all  tones  in  her  voice  equally 
beautiful  she  tackled  with  the  same  determination.  Select- 
ing the  best  six  tones  of  her  voice,  "she  practised  these 
notes,  with  the  semitones  between  them,  more  diligently 
than  any  others,  with  the  full  determination  to  extend  the 
process  until  the  tone  of  the  remaining  portions  of  the  voice 
became  as  rich,  as  pure,  and  as  powerful  as  that  of  the 
six  notes  which  she  regarded  as  forming  the  fundamental 
basis  of  the  whole."  She  succeeded  fully  in  carrying  out 
this  intention,  "and  it  is  scarcely  too  much  to  say  that  to 


JENNY  LIND  35 

this  firm  resolve,  and  the  clear  foresight  which  prompted 
it,  her  ultimate  success  is  mainly  to  be  attributed." 

Where  most  of  the  dramatic  sopranos  of  our  time  fail  is 
in  dynamic  shading.  They  can  sing  forte  or  fortissimo 
beautifully,  often  thrillingly,  but  when  they  attempt  a 
pianissimo^  or  even  a  piano,  the  quality  of  the  voice  de- 
teriorates and  they  lose  control  of  pitch  and  steadiness. 
Not  so  with  Jenny  Lind.  Her  pianissimo,  we  are  told,  was 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  features  of  her  singing.  "It 
reached  to  the  remotest  comer  of  the  largest  theatre  or 
concert-room  in  which  she  sang;  it  was  as  rich  and  full  as 
her  mezzo  forte;  yet  it  was  so  truly  piano  that  it  fell  upon 
the  ear  with  the  charm  of  a  whisper,  only  just  strong 
enough  to  be  audible."  Chopin  wrote,  after  hearing  her 
in  London,  in  1848:  ''Her  singing  is  infallibly  pure  and 
true;  but,  above  all,  I  admire  her  piano  passages,  the 
charm  of  which  is  indescribable."  It  was  to  the  skilful 
management  of  her  breath  that  she  owed  this  fascinating 
piano  and  pianissimo  as  well  as  ''that  marvellous  com- 
mand of  the  messa  di  voce  which  enabled  her  to  swell  out 
a  crescendo  to  its  utmost  limit,  and  follow  it,  without  a 
break,  with  a  diminuendo  which  died  away  to  an  imper- 
ceptible point,  so  completely  covering  the  end  of  the  note 
that  no  ear  could  detect  the  moment  at  which  it  faded  into 
silence." 

Two  more  useful  hints  may  be  cited  from  the  excellent 
volumes  of  Holland  and  Rockstro.  Jenny  Lind,  they 
assure  us,  never  allowed  herself  to  sing  very  difficult  pas- 
sages before  the  public  until  she  had  thoroughly  mastered 
them,  but  preferred  simplifying  them  to  running  the  risk 
of  an  imperfect  rendering  of  the  notes.  "To  the  end  of 
her  career  she  never  sang  in  the  evening  without  preparing 
for  the  performance  by  practising  for  a  long  time  earlier 
in  the  day — generally  a  mezza  voce,  to  avoid  fatiguing  the 
voice  imnecessarily,  but  never  sparing  the  time  or  trouble. 


36  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

And  herein  lay  the  secret  of  her  victory  over  difficulties 
which  tempt  so  many  less  courageous  aspirants  to  despair." 

Let  us  now  return  to  Paris,  where  we  left  Jenny  with 
her  worn  voice  rejuvenated  by  the  magic  of  Garcia.  She 
had  aroused  enthusiasm  in  Sweden  even  as  a  wrongly 
taught  beginner;  should  she  not  attempt,  now,  to  win  the 
Parisians  with  her  renovated,  purified,  and  strengthened 
voice  ? 

Madame  Lindblad  had  written  from  Sweden  that  if 
Jenny  came  back  without  having  sung  in  Paris,  people 
would  intimate  that  she  was  not  fit  for  such  a  thing.  To 
this  she  replied:  ''It  is  a  very  difficult  thing  to  appear  here 
in  public.  On  the  stage  it  would  be  out  of  the  question. 
It  could  only  be  in  the  concert-room:  and  there  I  am  at 
my  weakest  point  and  shall  always  remain  so.  What  is 
wanted  here  is — 'admirers.'  Were  I  inclined  to  receive 
them,  all  would  be  smooth  sailing.     But  there  I  say — 

STOP." 

To  another  friend  she  wrote:  "Applause,  here,  is  not 
always  given  to  talent,  but,  often  enough,  to  vice — to  any 
obscure  person  who  can  afford  to  pay  for  it.  Ugh!  It  is 
too  dreadful  to  see  the  clacqueurs  sitting  at  the  theatre, 
night  after  night,  deciding  the  fate  of  those  who  are  com- 
pelled to  appear." 

Her  friend  Lindblad,  who  was  in  Paris  at  this  time, 
wrote  to  his  wife:  "Not  a  soul  has  here  done  the  least 
toward  making  her  known.  She  has  "been  living  as  in  a 
convent.  Still,  she  is  not  sorry  to  return  home;  for  the 
greatest  stage  reputations  are  here  won  only  through  sac- 
rificing honor  and  reputation.  While  the  world  is  resound- 
ing with  their  praise,  every  salon  is  closed  to  them,  and 
this  even  in  easy-going  Paris.  Such  homage  as  Jenny  met 
with  in  Sweden,  no  foreign  artist  ever  received.  This  she 
feels;  and  it  is  for  this  vivifying  atmosphere  that  she 
longs." 


JENNY  LIND  37 

Longing  for  home  was  one  of  the  motives  which 
prompted  her  to  accept  an  offer  from  the  Royal  Theatre 
at  Stockholm,  to  which  she  returned  without  having  been 
heard  publicly  in  Paris.  Erroneous  assertions  to  the  con- 
trary have  crept  into  not  a  few  of  the  biographies  and  lexi- 
cons, some  saying  that  she  sang  at  the  Opera  but  failed, 
and  that  in  consequence  she  vowed  never  again  to  appear 
in  Paris.  In  truth,  she  did  sing  at  the  Grand  Opera,  but 
not  for  the  public,  only  for  a  few  hearers,  among  them 
Meyerbeer,  L6on  Pillet  (manager  of  the  Opera),  and  Lind- 
blad.  She  was  not  at  her  best  on  this  occasion,  according 
to  Lindblad,  and,  although  the  judges  liked  her  voice,  no 
steps  were  taken  to  secure  her  for  the  Opera.  The  director 
of  the  Theatre-Italien,  however,  made  her  an  offer;  but 
she  declined  it,  thanking  him  for  the  honor  of  thinking  her 
"worthy  to  appear  before  the  first  audience  in  the  world," 
but  declaring:  "The  more  I  think  of  it,  the  more  I  am  per- 
suaded that  I  am  not  suited  for  Paris,  nor  Paris  for  me." 

The  offer  she  accepted  from  the  Stockholm  Theatre  was 
not  brilliant.  She  was  to  get  a  salary  equal  to  S750  a  year, 
besides  a  "benefit"  and  extra  "service  money"  for  each 
appearance;  while  the  silk  costumes  and  bridal  gowns 
were  to  be  paid  for  by  the  management.  In  accepting 
these  terms,  she  stipulated,  in  view  of  the  "rather  too 
heavy  service  to  which  I  had  to  submit  in  former  times,  at 
the  Royal  Theatre,  and  from  the  evil  consequences  of 
which  I  am  still  suffering,"  that  she  be  not  obliged  to  sing 
more  than  twice  a  week,  nor  more  than  fifty  times  during 
the  season,  unless  an  extra  fee  of  a  sum  equal  to  $27  be  paid 
her  for  every  representation  over  and  above  the  said  fifty. 

She  had  made  her  last  appearance  at  Stockholm  in 
Norma.  This  same  opera  she  chose  for  her  reappearance, 
as  if  to  give  the  public  a  chance  to  make  comparisons  be- 
tween then  and  now.  The  critics  were  pleased  to  observe 
that  her  inability  to  control  high  sustained  notes  and  the 


38  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

necessity  for  simplifying  florid  passages  had  disappeared; 
also,  the  veiled  tones  in  her  voice;  and  as  for  the  public,  it 
went  wild  with  enthusiasm.  But  this  was  Stockholm,  her 
native  city.  Here  she  was  helped  by  local  pride  and 
patriotic  feeling.  She  could  come  on  the  stage,  for  in- 
stance, in  a  national  piece,  entitled  A  May  Day  in  Wdrendf 
as  the  heroine,  riding,  at  one  point,  on  horseback  on  to  the 
stage  and  singing  as  she  rode.  These  peasant  scenes 
would  stir  her  and  the  public,  and  no  one  would  be  over- 
critical.  But  how  about  the  cities  where  the  atmosphere 
and  the  scenes  and  the  audience  were  not  Swedish  ? 

Jenny  dreaded  to  risk  singing  on  a  foreign  stage — even 
at  Copenhagen.  Hans  Andersen  relates  in  his  autobiog- 
raphy that  she  said  to  him:  ''Except  in  Sweden  I  have 
never  appeared  in  public.  In  my  own  country  all  are  so 
kind  and  gentle  toward  me;  and  if  I  were  to  appear  in 
Copenhagen  and  be  hissed!  I  cannot  risk  it."  But  when 
she  did  appear  as  Alice,  in  Robert  le  Viable,  it  was,  in  the 
words  of  Andersen,  "like  a  new  revelation  in  the  domain 
of  art.  The  young,  fresh  voice  went  direct  to  the  hearts  of 
all.  Here  was  truth  and  nature.  Everything  had  clear- 
ness and  meaning.  In  her  concerts,  Jenny  Lind  sang  her 
Swedish  songs.  There  was  a  peculiar  and  seductive 
charm  about  them:  all  recollection  of  the  concert-room 
vanished:  the  popular  melodies  exerted  their  spell,  sung 
as  they  were  by  a  pure  voice  with  the  immortal  accent  of 
genius.  All  Copenhagen  was  in  raptures.  Jenny  Lind  was 
the  first  artist  to  whom  the  students  offered  a  serenade: 
the  torches  flashed  round  the  hospitable  villa,  where  the 
song  was  sung.  She  expressed  her  thanks  by  a  few  more 
of  the  Swedish  songs,  and  I  then  saw  her  hurry  into  the 
deepest  corner  and  weep  out  her  emotion.  '  Yes,  yes,'  she 
said,  'I  will  exert  myself;  I  will  strive;  I  shall  be  more 
efficient  than  I  am  now  when  I  come  to  Copenhagen 
again. ' " 


JENNY  LIND  39 

In  her  attitude  toward  applause  and  appreciation  Jenny 
Lind  was,  as  in  everything  else  relating  to  art,  a  model. 
In  a  letter  written  in  Paris  and  referring  to  her  early  tri- 
umphs at  home,  she  declared  that  the  applause  of  the  pub- 
lic filled  her  with  sorrow  rather  than  with  joy  because  she 
felt  that  she  did  not  deserve  it.  "  I  knew  that  I  had  not 
made  myself  worthy  of  it  through  my  own  work."  And 
now  that  the  tribute  of  the  Danish  students  made  her  weep 
with  joy,  her  thought  was  not:  *'I  have  arrived,"  but  ''I 
will  try  to  do  better  next  time." 

Of  such  is  the  kingdom  of  the  divine  art. 

Copenhagen  was  still  a  Scandinavian  city.  The  ques- 
tion was.  How  would  the  real  foreigners,  the  Germans,  for 
instance,  receive  Jenny  Lind?  It  was  answered  on  De- 
cember 15,  1844,  when  she  sang  Norma  in  Berlin,  and  the 
leading  local  critic  of  the  time,  Rellstab,  wrote  that  she  was 
"charming  from  the  first  note  to  the  last,"  adding  that 
"among  the  public  there  was  not  one  single  dissentient 
voice."  She  won  the  hearts  of  the  composers,  too,  among 
them  Mendelssohn  and  Meyerbeer,  both  of  whom  became 
her  devoted  admirers,  looking  on  her  as  the  model  singer. 
Meyerbeer  wrote  the  part  of  Vielka  in  his  Feldlager  in 
Schlesien  expressly  for  her,  and  was  intensely  disappointed 
when  the  terms  of  the  contract  compelled  him  to  give  it  to 
another,  who  failed  to  make  it  a  success.  The  opera  was 
subsequently  brought  out  again  with  Lind,  and,  in  the 
words  of  her  friend  Josephson,  Meyerbeer  had,  in  the  in- 
terim, "to  the  best  of  my  belief,  called  upon  her  at  least  a 
hundred  times,  to  consult  about  this,  that,  or  the  other." 
Her  Vielka  proved  a  decided  success.  "Her  singing,"  says 
the  same  writer,  "was  beautiful,  her  acting  full  of  genius, 
life,  and  fire.  The  applause  was  spontaneous  and  enthu- 
siastic. Her  nervousness,  which  had  kept  her  practising 
the  whole  afternoon  and  again  before  the  beginning  of  the 
opera,  was  not  noticed  by  any  one;  nor  did  it  prevent  her 


40  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

either  from  singing  or  acting  her  very  best.  The  public 
was  enchanted  and  Meyerbeer  happy." 

As  for  Mendelssohn,  after  he  had  heard  her  in  Vienna 
the  first  time  he  wrote  to  a  friend:  "Jenny  Lind  is  singing 
here,  and  I  will  say  no  more  than  that  I  have  caught  the 
^  fever,'  and  that  in  its  most  violent  form.  .  .  .  Such  a 
voice  I  have  never  heard  in  all  my  life,  nor  have  I  ever  met 
with  so  genial,  so  womanly,  so  musical  a  nature.  .  .  . 
There  is  a  charm  in  her  voice  that  I  have  never  known 
before,  surpassing  all  that  other  singers  have  attained  to, 
however  powerful  their  acting  on  the  stage.  The  Lind 
soars  above  all,  but  not  through  any  single  quality.  It  is 
the  mastery  wielded  by  this  anima  Candida  that  works  the 
magic." 

To  another  friend,  the  eminent  basso,  Franz  Hauser,  he 
wrote  with  reference  to  ''the  Lind":  "And  to  you,  as  a 
singer,  it  must  be  especially  delightful  to  meet,  at  last,  with 
the  union  of  such  splendid  talents,  with  such  profound 
study  and  such  heart-felt  enthusiasm." 

Talents,  Study,  Enthusiasm — in  those  three  words 
Mendelssohn  summed  up  the  secret  of  Jenny  Lind's 
success. 

She  herself  appears  to  have  been  the  last  to  believe  in 
her  worth  and  her  achievements.  After  her  triumphs  in 
Berlin  (where  she  sang  at  prices  for  tickets  absolutely  un- 
precedented), she  was  heard  in  Hamburg  with  the  same 
result.  "It  would  be  impossible,"  wrote  the  historian, 
Dr.  Uhde,  "to  give  any  idea  of  the  ecstasy  into  which  the 
whole  town  of  Hamburg  was  thrown."  Twelve  times  she 
sang  "to  houses  so  crowded  that  the  aid  of  the  police  had 
to  be  called  in  to  regulate  the  crush."  She  "was  the  first 
in  Hamburg  whose  whole  figure  was  so  completely  be- 
strewn with  flowers  that  she  stood  upon  an  improvised 
carpet  of  blossoms."  Nor  were  the  demonstrations  of 
enthusiasm  confined  to  the  opera-house.     There  was  a 


JENNY  LIND  41 

serenade  and  a  torchlight  procession,  followed  by  fireworks, 
in  her  honor. 

And  yet,  after  all  this,  she  dreaded  to  sing  in  Vienna! 
"I  have  had  the  privilege,"  she  wrote  to  Mme.  Birch- 
Pfeiffer,  "of  speaking  to  the  Prince  and  Princess  of  Met- 
ternich,  here  in  Frankfurt,  at  Baron  Rothschild's,  and  they 
have  both  advised  me  to  go  to  Vienna.  And  yet — only 
think! — what  if  I  lose  my  whole  reputation!  If  I  do  not 
please!  And  this  anxiety  grows  so  much  upon  me!  And 
all  through  next  winter  the  thought  of  my  first  appearance 
in  Vienna  will  follow  me  like  an  evil  spirit.  Ah,  yes!  lam 
very  much  to  be  pitied." 

How  futile  all  these  fears  were  we  know  from  Mendels- 
sohn's reference  to  the  Lind  "fever,"  which  he,  too,  caught 
in  Vienna.  "Never  within  the  memory  of  the  Viennese," 
we  read  elsewhere,  "had  such  crowds  assembled  at  the 
theatre  or  such  prices  been  demanded  for  admission." 
Jenny  herself  wrote  to  a  friend:  "At  the  close  I  was  called 
back  sixteen  times,  and  twelve  or  fourteen  before  that. 
Just  count  that  up!  And  this  reception!  I  was  quite 
astounded."  Her  triumph  was  the  greater  because  the 
tenor  was  a  singer  "at  whom  every  one  laughed,"  as  she 
wrote,  while  "the  whole  Italian  faction  was  opposed  to 
me,"  and  the  tickets  cost  four  to  eight  times  as  much  as 
usual. 

We  cannot  follow  the  prima  donna — now  in  her  twenty- 
fifth  year — in  her  triumphal  career.  As  a  matter  of  course, 
her  amazing  success  in  the  German  cities  soon  brought  her 
an  offer  from  London — ;£4,8oo  for  the  season,  beginning 
April  14  and  ending  August  20,  1847,  besides  a  furnished 
house,  a  carriage,  and  a  pair  of  horses,  free  of  charge,  for 
that  period.  She  made  her  debut  on  May  4th,  and  the  ex- 
citement "  exceeded  anything  that  had  ever  been  witnessed 
by  the  oldest  frequenter  of  Her  Majesty's  Theatre."  The 
Queen  was  one  of  the  greatest  enthusiasts;    she  cast  a 


42  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

superb  bouquet  from  the  royal  box  at  the  feet  of  the  debu- 
tante— an  incident  unparalleled  on  any  former  occasion  in 
London. 

"Yesterday,"  the  singer  wrote  to  a  friend,  "I  made  my 
first  appearance  here  as  Alice,  in  Robert^  and  it  went  so^  that, 
through  the  whole  night  I  could  not  sleep  for  joy."  The 
critics  gave  elaborate  accounts  of  her  triumph  and  her  art, 
special  attention  being  called  by  the  Times  to  the  fact  that 
"  the  sustained  notes,  swelling  with  full  richness,  and  fading 
down  to  the  softest  pianoy  without  losing  one  iota  of  their 
quality,  being  delicious  when  loud,  delicious  when  whis- 
pered, dwelt  in  the  public  ear,  and  reposed  in  the  public 
heart";  while  another  critic  was  particularly  impressed 
by  this,  that  "  at  the  instant  the  listener,  from  the  habit  of 
hearing  other  artists,  expects  the  voice  to  become  weak  and 
fatigued — at  that  moment  it  bursts  forth  in  greater  beauty 
than  ever." 

A  writer  in  the  Musical  World  attempted  a  pen-portrait : 
"Jenny  Lind  is  young,  of  the  middle  height,  fair-haired, 
blue-eyed,  neither  stout  nor  slender,  but  well-proportioned, 
neither  fat  nor  thin,  but  enough  of  the  one  for  comeliness, 
and  enough  of  the  other  for  romance,  meek-looking  when 
her  features  are  at  rest,  full  of  animation  and  energy  when 
they  are  at  play." 

Socially  her  success  was  as  great  as  artistically.  The 
Queen  not  only  applauded  her  in  the  opera-house  but  in- 
vited her  to  visit  her  in  private.  The  Duke  of  Wellington 
asked  her  to  his  country-seat,  promising,  so  Lumley  relates, 
that  music  should  form  no  topic  of  the  conversation;  and 
other  invitations  from  members  of  the  aristocracy  were  far 
more  numerous  than  she  could  accept. 

Such  things,  however,  did  not  add  greatly  to  her  happi- 
ness. Ever  since  her  girlhood  she  had  disliked  society, 
with  its  artificial  etiquette,  preferring  the  joys  of  nature — 
wild  flowers,  trees,  and  the  song  of  birds.     On  one  occasion. 


JENNY  LIND  43 

when  Mrs.  Grote  congratulated  her  on  the  flattering  atten- 
tions bestowed  on  her  in  London,  she  answered:  "Dear 
Madame,  you  are  much  more  proud  for  me  than  I  am  for 
myself.  It  certainly  was  a  splendid  sight;  but  I  would 
rather  have  been  rambling  with  you  among  the  Burnham 
beeches,  after  all." 

Her  attitude  toward  applause  on  the  stage  also  was 
different  from  that  of  the  average  artist.  Those  who  knew 
her  best  aver  that  many  a  time,  amid  the  noisy  demonstra- 
tions over  her  singing  and  acting,  she  would  have  preferred 
the  quiet  of  home  life.  "It  seems  as  if  the  usual  conse- 
quences of  the  excitement  and  jubilation  that  she  every- 
where creates  pass  over  her,"  wrote  Heinrich  Brockhaus. 
After  her  second  appearance  in  Vienna  in  Norma  she  her- 
self wrote:  "Was  called  so  many  times  before  the  curtain 
that  I  was  quite  exhausted.  Bah!  I  do  not  like  it! 
Everything  should  be  done  in  moderation,  otherwise  it  is 
not  pleasing," 

These  peculiarities  in  the  character  of  Jenny  Lind  pre- 
pare us  for  the  astonishing  thing  that  happened — her  re- 
tirement from  the  operatic  stage  at  the  early  age  of  twenty- 
nine!  Her  first  London  season,  at  which  she  appeared  in 
Robert  le  Viable,  La  Sonnambula,  La  Figlia  del  Reggimento. 
I  Masnadieri,  Le  Nozze  di  Figaro,  Norma,  was  followed  by 
another,  even  more  brilliantly  successful,  in  1848.  The 
provinces,  too,  were  visited,  and  the  prima  donna's  share  of 
the  profits  from  these  extra  performances  alone  amounted 
to  ;£io,ooo.  During  this  time  there  was  a  disquieting 
rumor  in  the  air,  which  became  more  and  more  positive, 
that  the  idol  of  the  stage  was  about  to  leave  it  and  devote 
herself  thereafter  to  concerts. 

It  was  only  too  true,  this  rumor.  Lumley  was  eager  to 
make  a  contract  for  the  season  of  1849,  but  she  could  not  be 
persuaded,  and  ere  long  it  was  announced  authoritatively, 
that  Miss  Lind  had  made  up  her  mind  positively  never  to 


44  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

appear  again  on  the  operatic  stage.  The  manager  was  in 
despair;  the  old  subscribers  had  been  wondering:  "Will 
Jenny  Lind  act  ?  "  and  when  they  heard  she  would  not  they 
held  back.  By  way  of  compromise,  she  agreed  to  appear 
in  six  operatic  concerts — operas  without  the  stage  acces- 
sories. 

It  was  a  foolish  plan.  Mozart's  Figaro  was  the  first — 
and  the  only — victim  of  it.  There  was  not  a  trace  of  the 
"Jenny  Lind  fever."  The  house  was  "comparatively 
empty,"  and  "the  applause  was  cold  and  feeble,"  as  Lum- 
ley  himself  relates  in  his  Reminiscences  oj  the  Opera.  The 
plan  of  the  "Six  Grand  Classical  Concerts"  was  aban- 
doned, and,  to  save  the  manager  from  ruin.  Miss  Lind 
kindly  consented  to  suspend  her  intention  of  retiring  from 
the  stage  and  to  give  a  few  more  performances.  That 
was  what  the  public  wanted;  once  more  the  house  was 
crowded,  and  the  Lind  enthusiasm  rose  again  to  fever  heat. 

Carlyle  once  referred  to  a  Jenny  Lind  audience  as  "  some 
three  thousand  expensive-looking  fools."  But  at  this 
emergency  the  public  was  not  as  foolish  as  it  may  have 
looked.  Operas  in  concert  form  may  be  a  permissible 
makeshift — half  a  loaf  is  better  than  no  bread — in  small 
towns  where  no  real  operatic  performances  are  given;  but 
it  is  to  be  noted  that  Patti,  Calve,  and  other  prima  donnas 
who  have  given  such  concerts,  have  usually  avoided  the 
cities  where  actual  opera  can  be  heard.  The  Londoners 
naturally  resented  what  must  have  seemed  to  them  a  mere 
caprice  on  the  part  of  a  prima  donna,  which  not  only  need- 
lessly mutilated  a  masterwork  by  Mozart,  but  deprived 
them  of  the  enjoyment  of  one-half  of  her  art;  for  Lind's 
acting  was  almost  as  fascinating  as  her  singing,  and  this 
was  to  be  ruthlessly  sacrificed  at  these  "grand  classical 
concerts!" 

We  have  seen  that  at  the  very  beginning  of  her  career  she 
excelled  even  more  as  an  actress  than  as  a  singer.     Subse- 


JENNY  LIND  45 

quently  the  critics  seldom  failed  to  dwell  on  the  charm  of 
her  dramatic  impersonations,  and  to  contrast  her  concep- 
tion of  famous  parts,  usually  to  her  advantage,  with  the 
acting  of  her  predecessors.  The  art  of  these  she  took  every 
opportunity  to  study;  also  that  of  actresses  who  did  not 
sing;  and  she  was  astonishingly  free  from  jealousy  or 
vanity,  as  the  following  extract  from  a  letter  attests:  "The 
difference  between  Mile.  Rachel  and  myself  is,  that  she  can 
be  splendid  when  angry,  but  she  is  unsuited  for  tenderness. 
I  am  desperately  ugly,  and  nasty  too,  when  in  anger;  but 
I  think  I  do  better  in  tender  parts.  Of  course,  I  do  not 
compare  myself  with  Rachel.  Certainly  not.  She  is  im- 
measurably greater  than  I.     Poor  me!" 

Lindblad,  to  whom  this  letter  was  addressed,  wrote  re- 
garding Lind:  "You  know,  she  never  does  herself  justice 
until  she  is  in  full  action  on  the  stage."  A  London  critic, 
in  discussing  her  acting,  remarked :  "  In  the  absence  of  all 
stage-trickery  or  conventionalism  may  be  distinguished  the 
child  of  genius";  also,  that  "she  never  sacrifices  sense  to 
sound" — a  vice,  it  may  be  added,  to  which  singers  of  her 
time  were  generally  addicted. 

To  an  Englishman  she  once  said:  "  I  scarcely  ever  think 
of  the  effect  I  am  producing,  and  if  the  thought  does  some- 
times come  across  me  it  spoils  my  acting.  It  seems  to  me, 
when  I  act,  that  I  feel  fully  all  the  emotions  of  the  character 
I  represent.  I  fancy  myself — in  fact,  I  believe  myself — to 
be  in  her  situation,  and  never  think  of  the  audience." 

Holland  and  Rockstro  cite  a  lady  who  wrote:  "There 
was  this  peculiarity  about  her  acting — that  it  was  entirely 
part  of  herself.  It  seemed  not  so  much  that  she  entered 
into  the  part  as  that  she  became,  for  the  moment,  that  which 
she  had  to  express.  For  this  reason  her  acting  was  unequal. 
She  could  not  render  anything  in  which  there  was  a  sugges- 
tion repugnant  to  her  own  higher  nature.  But  in  a  part 
that  suited  her — such  as  Sonnambula — she  expressed  every 


46  .  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

varying  emotion  of  the  character  perfectly  because  she 
really  felt  it." 

This  same  opera  afforded  an  illustration  of  her  excep- 
tional conscientiousness  as  an  actress.  Most  of  the  singers 
of  her  time  who  impersonated  Amina,  the  sleep-walker, 
refused  to  cross  the  narrow  mimic  bridge  over  the  revolving 
water-wheel,  the  usual  plan  being  to  dress  up  a  member  of 
the  chorus  for  that  feat.  Lind  would  have  none  of  this. 
"I  should  have  been  ashamed,"  she  said,  "to  stand  before 
the  audience  pretending  that  I  had  crossed  the  bridge  if  I 
had  not  really  done  it." 

Such  was  Jenny  Lind  the  actress.  Naturally  enough 
the  Londoners  resented  her  determination  to  deliberately 
extinguish  one-half  of  her  talent.  It  seemed  a  sort  of  semi- 
suicide,  artistically  speaking;  but  the  semi-suicide  was 
ruthlessly  committed,  regardless  of  everything.  Having 
helped  her  manager  out  of  his  scrape,  Lind  said  farewell  to 
the  operatic  stage  forever  on  May  lo,  1849,  Meyerbeer's 
Robert  le  Viable  being  chosen  for  the  occasion. 

Two  other  musicians  astounded  and  dismayed  the  world 
by  retiring  prematurely  from  the  scenes  of  their  triumphs. 
Rossini  gave  up  composing  operas  thirty-nine  years  before 
his  death,  although  the  public  was  clamoring  wildly  for 
more  and  the  publishers  were  offering  fabulous  sums;  and 
Liszt  gave  up  playing  the  piano  in  public,  under  similar 
conditions,  also  thirty-nine  years  before  the  end  of  his  life. 
But  in  their  cases  the  motives  were  obvious:  Liszt  was  tired 
of  playing  and  wanted  to  give  his  time  to  composing  and 
teaching;  while  Rossini  was  lazy,  tired  of  composing,  and 
had  all  the  money  and  fame  he  wanted. 

Why  did  Jenny  Lind,  at  the  age  of  twenty-nine, 
thirty-eight  years  before  her  death,  leave  the  operatic  stage, 
when  she  had  all  the  musical  world  at  her  feet  ? 

There  were  several  reasons.  Repugnance  to  stage  life 
was  hereditary  in  the  family.      Concerning  her  mother, 


JENNY  LIND  47 

Jenny  once  wrote:  "She,  like  myself,  had  the  greatest 
horror  of  all  that  was  connected  with  the  stage."  Richard 
Wagner,  oddly  enough,  records  the  same  feeling  in  his  own 
youth.    He  lived  it  down;  Lind  did  not. 

There  was  a  time  when  the  stage  seemed  to  be  her  para- 
dise. In  October,  1841,  she  wrote  from  Paris:  *'I  am 
longing  for  home.  I  am  longing  for  my  theatre.  I  have 
never  said  this  before  in  any  of  my  letters.  I  know  I  am 
contradicting  myself,  but  I  rejoice  over  it.  Oh!  to  pour 
out  my  feelings  in  a  beautiful  part !  This  is,  and  ever  will 
be,  my  continual  aim,  and  until  I  stand  there  again  I 
shall  not  know  myself  as  I  really  am.  Life  on  the  stage 
has  in  it  something  so  fascinating  that  I  think,  having  once 
tasted  it,  one  can  never  feel  truly  happy  away  from  it,  espe- 
cially when  one  has  given  oneself  wholly  up  to  it  with  life 
and  soul,  as  I  have  done.  This  has  been  my  joy,  my 
pride,  my  glory!" 

Six  years  later  we  find  her  writing  to  a  friend  to  express 
her  gratitude  to  God  for  having  preserved  in  her  breast  her 
love  for  her  native  land — "for  it  might  have  happened  that 
I  never  again  should  have  wished  for  Sweden  after  the 
heavenly — yes!  the  heavenly  career  which  I  have  had." 

Gradually  the  unpleasant  side  of  stage  life  forced  itself 
on  her  attention  more  and  more.  "I  shall  quit  the  stage 
in  a  year  from  now,"  she  wrote  in  1845;  and  this  resolve 
gained  more  and  more  force  until  it  led,  as  we  have  seen, 
to  the  regretted  act  in  1849. 

Mrs.  Grote  has  recorded  some  of  the  reasons,  given  in 
conversations:  "that  at  the  Opera  she  was  liable  to  be 
continually  intruded  upon  by  curious  idlers  and  exposed 
to  many  indescribable  ennuis;  that  the  combined  fatigue 
of  acting  and  singing  was  exhausting;  that  the  exposure 
to  cold  coulisses,  after  exertions  on  the  stage  in  a  heated 
atmosphere,  was  trying  to  the  chest;  the  labor  of  rehear- 
sals, tiresome  to  a  degree;  and  that,  altogether,  she  longed 


48  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

for  the  time  when  she  would  be  rich  enough  to  do  without 
the  theatre." 

To  Birch-Pfeiffer,  Lind  wrote:  "You  see,  Mother  Birch, 
this  life  does  not  suit  me  at  all.  If  you  could  only  see  me 
— the  despair  I  am  in  whenever  I  go  to  the  theatre  to  sing! 
It  is  too  much  for  me!  This  terrible  nervousness  destroys 
everything  for  me.  I  sing  far  less  well  than  I  should,  if  it 
were  not  for  this  enemy." 

On  this  point  one  of  her  friends  testifies  that,  "for  in- 
stance, for  several  days  after  a  performance  of  Norma 
her  nerves  would  be  so  shattered  that  she  would  be  unfit  for 
other  useful  mental  occupation." 

To  Mme.  Erikson,  Lind  wrote:  "But  please  to  reflect, 
just  a  little,  how  difficult  it  is  to  stand  all  this  racing  about 
— alone!  alone!  .  .  .  Enough  to  say  that  my  connection 
with  the  stage  has  no  attraction  for  me — that  my  soul  is 
yearning  for  rest  from  all  these  persistent  compliments  and 
this  persistent  adulation."  Her  friend  Brockhaus  wrote: 
"She  does  not  feel  happy.  I  am  convinced  that  she  would 
gladly  exchange  all  her  triumphs  for  simple,  homely  happi- 
ness"; and  Holland  and  Rockstro  declare  that  "to  her  the 
stage,  with  its  cold  coulisses  and  its  ceaseless  round  of 
monotonous  hard  work,  was  as  prosaic  as  the  routine  of  the 
school-room  to  a  jaded  governess." 

Aff'airs  of  the  heart  and  religious  considerations  also  came 
into  play.  She  was  engaged  for  a  time  to  a  tenor  in  Stock- 
holm named  Giinther;  but  to  marry  him  would  have 
meant  a  continuance  of  stage  life,  and  for  this,  and  other 
reasons,  the  engagement  came  to  an  end.  In  England  she 
was  inclined  for  a  time  to  marry  Claudius  Harris,  a  young 
captain  in  the  Indian  army,  whose  mother  had  taught  him 
to  consider  the  theatre  as  outside  the  pale  of  religion.  The 
date  for  the  wedding  was  already  fixed,  but  when  the  cap- 
tain insisted,  in  the  drawing  up  of  settlements,  that  she 
should  pledge  herself  absolutely  to  leave  the  stage  forever, 


JENNY  LIND  49 

and  that  he  should  have  control  of  her  earnings,  her  spirit 
of  independence  rebelled,  and  the  captain  passed  out  of 
her  life,  like  the  tenor. 

She  never  could  persuade  herself  that  the  theatre  is  in 
itself  wicked  and  hostile  to  religion;  but  the  general  re- 
ligious atmosphere  of  England  made  a  deep  impression  on 
her  and  helped  to  turn  her  mind  from  opera  to  oratorio, 
the  musical  specialty  of  England.  Meanwhile,  to  cite  her 
own  words,  ''poor  Lumley  and  my  colleagues  tell  me  it  is 
ungrateful  in  me,  after  having  acquired  such  fame  as  an 
actress,  to  desert  the  stage  as  if  it  were  a  disgrace;  that  if  I 
do  so,  then,  instead  of  raising  the  profession,  as  I  had  hoped 
to  do,  I  shall  sink  it  lower,  as  I  shall  seem  to  fly  from  it  as 
a  degradation." 

In  nearly  every  other  aspect  of  her  life  we  have  been 
able  to  hold  up  this  woman  as  a  model  to  students  ambi- 
tious of  stage  honors.  Her  desertion  of  the  stage  is  an 
exception.  What  if  her  operatic  career  was  more  or  less  of 
a  martyrdom  ?  Most  great  artists  have  been  martyrs,  and 
had  they  been  unwilling  to  endure  the  discomforts  accom- 
panying a  strenuous  life,  the  history  of  art,  creative  and 
interpretative,  would  be  illustrated  with  fewer  pinnacles. 
Lind  was  a  traitress  to  the  art  operatic,  and  that  is  a  blot 
on  her  esthetic  reputation. 

However,  there  are  not  a  few  who  believe,  not  only  on 
religious  grounds,  that  the  oratorio  and  concert  are  a 
higher  phase  of  music  than  opera.  For  these  she  exerted 
herself  thenceforth,  leaving  to  others  (to  cite  her  own 
words)  ''the  profession  which  holds  so  many  thorns 
amongst  the  roses."  Her  principal  English  biographers 
go  so  far  as  to  say  that  great  as  were  her  operatic  triumphs 
in  London  and  the  provinces,  the  love  that  made  her  name 
a  household  word  in  every  English  homestead  was  won  in 
the  concert-room  and  at  the  oratorio:  "It  was  through 
Elijah  and  Messiah^  through  the  lieder  of  Mendelssohn 


so  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

and  Lindblad,  and  the  Swedish  Melodies,  and  the  thousand 
treasures  that  appeared,  later  on,  in  the  concert  programmes 
— that  the  beloved  '  Swedish  Nightingale'  sang  her  way  into 
the  great  heart  of  the  British  people." 

In  the  minds  of  many  serious  music-lovers  the  regret 
that  Jenny  Lind  abandoned  the  opera  was  probably  miti- 
gated by  the  thought  that  she  had  been  wasting  her  rare 
gifts  largely  on  trivial  works.  When  Carlyle  heard  her  in 
Sonnamhula  he  wrote:  "Nothing  could  exceed  my  ennui. 
.  .  .  Lind  seemed  to  me  a  very  true,  clear,  genuine  little 
creature,  with  a  voice  of  extraordinary  extent  and  little 
richness  of  tone,  who  sang,  acted,  etc.,  with  consummate 
fidelity,  but  had  unfortunately  nothing  but  mere  nonsense 
to  sing  or  act.  ...  It  was  one  o'clock  when  we  got  home; 
on  the  whole,  I  do  not  desire  to  hear  Lind  again;  it  would 
not  bring  me  sixpence  worth  of  benefit,  I  think,  to  hear  her 
sing  six  months  in  that  kind  of  material." 

In  the  eleven  years  from  March  7,  1838,  to  May  10, 
1849,  she  had  sung  677  times,  in  thirty  operas.  Among 
these  thirty  there  were  eight  masterworks:  Lucia^  Frei- 
schutz,  Magic  Flute,  Don  Juan,  Figaro,  Les  Huguenots, 
Euryanihe,  Armida;  but  the  table  given  by  Holland  and 
Rockstro  (Vol.  II,  p.  305)  shows  that,  with  the  exception 
of  the  first  two  of  these,  she  was  called  upon  to  sing  much 
more  frequently  in  "mere  nonsense"  operas,  as  Carlyle 
aptly  called  them.  Undoubtedly  this  barbarian  taste  of 
the  operatic  audiences  of  her  time  also  had  some  influence 
in  inducing  her  to  devote  herself  exclusively  to  the  oratorio 
and  the  concert  stage  in  which  she  could  ofifer  something 
better.  This  surmise  is  borne  out  by  an  extract  from  one 
of  her  letters  to  Birch-Pfeiffer:  "What  do  you  say  of  my 
having  left  the  stage?  I  cannot  tell  you  in  words  how 
happy  I  feel  about  it.  I  shall  sing  in  concerts  as  long  as 
I  have  a  voice;  but  that  only  gives  me  pleasure.  ...  I 
have  begun  to  sing  what  has  long  been  the  wish  of  my 


JENNY  LIND  51 

heart — Oratorio.  There  I  can  sing  the  music  I  love;  and 
the  words  make  me  feel  a  better  being." 

She  had,  of  course,  been  heard  in  oratorios  and  concerts 
many  times  before  she  gave  up  the  opera.  A  notable  oc- 
currence was  the  performance  in  London,  a  year  after 
Mendelssohn's  death,  of  his  Elijah^  with  Jenny  Lind  in  the 
soprano  part,  which  he  had  expressly  written  for  her.  "He 
had  studied  her  voice  with  microscopic  care,  and  knew  the 
timbre  of  every  note  in  it  as  well  as  if  it  had  been  his  own." 

The  object  of  this  performance  of  Elijah  calls  attention 
to  what  became  thenceforth  the  leading  motive  in  her 
character.  It  was  to  help  to  found  a  ''Mendelssohn  Foun- 
dation for  Free  Scholarships  in  the  Leipzig  Musical  Con- 
servatory," and  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  first  ''Men- 
delssohn Scholar"  to  benefit  by  this  fund  was  Arthur 
Sullivan,  who  afterward  delighted  two  continents  with  his 
melodious  operettas. 

Previous  to  this  event  she  had,  when  she  reappeared  in 
Sweden  after  an  absence  of  two  years,  laid  the  foundations 
of  a  college  the  object  of  which  she  indicated  in  these  words: 
"I  have  assigned  the  whole  amount  of  my  portion  of  the 
receipts  from  the  representations  in  which  I  shall  appear, 
toward  establishing  a  fund,  the  income  of  which  is  to  be 
devoted  to  an  institution  for  educating  poor  children  who, 
while  specially  endowed  for  the  stage,  lack  the  care  of  par- 
ents or  relatives,  without  which,  in  a  moral  and  artistic 
respect,  they  either  lose,  or  else  fail  to  reach,  the  higher  de- 
velopment for  which  their  gifts  would  give  reasonable 
hope." 

Thus  she  tried  to  repay  her  country  for  the  aid  she 
had  received  as  a  child;  and  we  are  assured  that  "from 
the  time  that  she  won  her  place  in  the  European  drama, 
she  never  sang  in  her  native  land  again  on  her  own  behalf." 
"To  wed  myself  wholly  to  well-doing"  is  her  declared  in- 
tention as  early  as  1848;  and  there  is  every  reason  to  be- 


52  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

lieve  that  had  it  not  been  for  this  intention  the  most  re- 
markable episode  in  her  life  would  never  have  occurred. 

This  episode  was  her  American  tour  under  the  manage- 
ment of  the  great  showman,  P.  T.  Barnum,  which  gave  rise 
to  incidents  and  aroused  enthusiasm  that  would  have  been 
astounding  had  she  crossed  the  ocean  as  the  first  of  the 
great  European  prima  donnas  of  the  opera,  but  was  doubly 
so  in  view  of  the  fact  that  she  sang  only  in  concerts.  The 
English  were  loath  to  lose  her,  and  they  gave  her  a  "send- 
off"  that  any  monarch  or  conquering  military  hero  might 
have  envied.  The  Liverpool  police  had  informed  Bar- 
num's  agent  that  if  Jenny  Lind  took  her  departure  from 
the  quay  at  the  hour  generally  expected,  they  could  not 
insure  the  safety  of  life  and  limb;  consequently  she  went 
to  the  pier  "by  all  manner  of  back  streets."  Innumerable 
craft  were  in  the  river  waiting  for  the  Atlantic  to  sail;  and 
when  the  steamer  started,  what  a  London  journalist  called 
a  "great  scene"  was  witnessed:  "The  immense  floating 
mass  began  to  move,  and,  as  if  by  magic,  all  the  craft  that 
had  been  playing  about  on  the  surface  of  the  river  formed 
into  lines  and  made  a  sort  of  procession."  Thousands  of 
men  and  women  lined  the  shores  and  cheered  as  the  steamer 
moved  on,  while  cannon  roared  farewell  salutes.  "Every 
eye  was  strained  to  get  a  sight  of  Jenny  Lind.  There  the 
little  woman  stood  on  the  paddle-box,  with  her  arm  in  that 
of  Captain  West,  and  waving  her  handkerchief  enthusi- 
astically." 

The  ocean  was  merely  an  intermezzo.  In  New  York  the 
enthusiastic  demonstrations  were  resumed.  There  was  a 
serenade  by  a  band  which  was  preceded  by  a  procession  of 
700  members  of  the  fire  brigade;  there  were  public  recep- 
tions "at  which  she  presided  like  a  queen,  though  with  less 
formality";  there  was  an  auction  sale  for  the  first  concert, 
which  yielded  $26,000.  The  singer's  share — $10,000 — as 
well  as  her  profits  on  the  second  concert,  she  gave  to  the 


JENNY  LIND  53 

principal  New  York  charities.  Her  gains  for  the  next  six 
were  $30,000.  But  this  sum,  too,  as  well  as  her  subsequent 
gains,  she  did  not  intend  to  keep  for  her  own  use.  Her 
object  in  accepting  Barnum's  offer  was  indicated  in  a  letter 
to  Mme.  Wichmann:  "Since  I  have  no  greater  wish  than 
to  make  much  money  in  order  to  found  schools  in  Sweden, 
I  cannot  help  looking  upon  this  journey  to  America  as  a 
gracious  answer  to  my  prayer  to  Heaven." 

For  herself  she  kept  only  what  was  necessary  to  enable 
her  to  live  and  to  buy  a  cottage  on  the  Malvern  Hills,  Eng- 
land. Her  wants  were  few  and  she  would  not  have  com- 
plained if  reverses  of  fortune  had  compelled  her  to  live 
literally  in  accordance  with  the  recipe  for  true  happiness 
contained  in  the  following  lines,  written  in  one  of  her  let- 
ters from  Boston:  " Few  suspect  how  unutterably  little  the 
world  and  its  splendor  have  been  able  to  turn  my  mind 
giddy.  Herrings  and  potatoes — a  clean  wooden  chair,  and 
a  wooden  spoon  to  eat  milk-soup  with — that  would  make 
me  skip  like  a  child,  for  joy.  And  this — without  the  slight- 
est trace  of  exaggeration,"  * 

Christine  Nilsson 

When  Jenny  Lind  was  twenty- three  years  old  (in  1843) 
there  was  born  in  Sweden  a  second  girl  who  was  destined 
to  win  a  place  in  the  first  rank  of  operatic  and  concert 
singers — Christine  Nilsson.     Her  parents  were  so  poor 

*  For  details  regarding  Jenny  Lind's  American  tours  there  is  no  room 
or  occasion  in  this  volume;  they  may  be  found  in  Barnum's  Autobiography 
and  Frith's  Autobiography  and  Reminiscences.  It  was  in  America,  in 
1852,  that  Lind  got  married — to  Otto  Goldschmidt,  noted  as  pianist, 
conductor,  and  composer.  Her  total  American  profits  were  $154,000,  of 
which  she  invested  $100,000  for  benevolent  purposes  in  Sweden.  In  the 
years  1883-6  she  taught  singing  at  the  Royal  College  of  Music,  in 
London.  Her  last  public  appearance  was  in  1883,  at  a  concert  given 
for  the  Railways  Servants'  Benevolent  Fund,  at  the  Spa,  Malvern  Hills. 
She  died  on  November  2,  1887. 


54  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

that  the  community  of  Hussaby  had  to  help  support  their 
family  of  eight  children.  Her  father  had  enough  skill  as  a 
singer  to  lead  the  congregation  in  the  Lutheran  church, 
and  from  him  she  learned  the  A  B  C  of  music.  Her 
brother  Carl  owned  a  violin,  on  which  she  taught  herself  to 
play.  He  used  to  earn  a  little  money  by  playing  at  fairs 
and  dances,  and  one  day  he  took  his  little  sister  along;  she 
had  a  pretty  voice  and  sang  the  simple  Swedish  folk  songs 
she  had  heard.  These  duos  gave  so  much  pleasure  that  he 
took  her  along  regularly.  Luckily,  on  one  of  these  occa- 
sions she  was  heard  by  a  magistrate  named  Tomerhjelm, 
who  was  so  delighted  with  her  singing  that  he  went  to  her 
father  and  offered  to  give  her,  at  his  own  expense,  a  musical 
as  well  as  a  general  education. 

The  offer  was  accepted.  Christine  was  placed  in  charge 
of  the  Baroness  de  Leuhusen,  who  took  her  to  Gottenburg 
and  instructed  her  in  German,  French,  singing,  and  piano- 
playing.  Subsequently,  at  Stockholm,  she  also  studied 
harmony.  "At  the  same  time,"  one  of  her  biographers  re- 
lates, "  she  studied  her  violin  so  conscientiously  that,  when 
sixteen  years  old,  her  old  friend  and  patron,  Tomerhjelm, 
told  her  that  she  should,  at  his  expense,  go  to  Paris,  and 
there  earn  the  glory  for  which  her  young  head  was  destined, 
and  that  she  must,  before  leaving,  give  a  great  concert  at 
Stockholm.  Christine  was  long  in  doubt  whether  she 
should  devote  her  life  to  the  fiddle  or  to  singing,  so  she  de- 
cided upon  coming  before  the  public  in  both  qualities,  and 
played  a  concerto  by  Mr.  Berwald  in  the  Grande  Salle 
Lacroix,  and  there,  too,  she  sang  the  aria  of  Alice  in 
French." 

Her  violin  playing  was  one  of  the  factors  which  contrib- 
uted to  her  success,  as  we  may  infer  from  what  Dr.  Hans- 
lick  wrote  about  her  many  years  later:  "Nilsson's  intona- 
tion is  always  so  exquisitely  pure  that  we  would  suspect  her 
of  being  a  violin  player  did  we  not  happen  to  know  that  she 


CHRISTINE  NILSSON  55 

is  one."  On  this  point  more  will  be  said  in  the  pages  de- 
voted to  Marcella  Sembrich. 

A  danger  to  which  all  students  are  exposed  confronted 
Christine  in  Paris:  she  fell  into  the  hands  of  a  teacher  who, 
by  a  wrong  method,  nearly  ruined  her  voice.  Fortunately  she 
left  him  in  time  for  Wartel,  who  undid  the  mischief  by  mak- 
ing her  sing  for  two  and  a  half  years  on  a,  a,  ee,  every  note 
of  the  scale,  and  the  last  six  months  with  words.  "  Those 
who  deem  this  an  extraordinarily  long  trial,  or  an  ex- 
aggerated, unnecessary  course,  may  take  it  for  granted  that 
if  they  do  not  study  so  conscientiously  they  will  not  stand 
the  test  of  twenty-five  years'  concerts  and  operas  as  Patti 
and  Nilsson  did,  and  retain  the  voice  so  full  and  fresh." 

At  the  age  of  twenty-one  she  was  engaged  to  sing  at  the 
Theatre  Lyrique  in  Paris  for  nine  months,  for  which  she 
was  to  get  $5,000.  Verdi's  La  Traviala  had  been  trans- 
lated for  the  occasion  of  her  debut,  and  she  made  at  once 
an  unforeseen  sensation.  "  I  remember,"  says  a  writer  in 
Temple  Bar^  "  having  heard  people  discuss  what  might  be 
the  reason  of  this  sudden  success.  Said  one,  'She  is  so 
young  and  pretty,  she  has  such  a  commanding  figure,  and 
shows  in  all  her  candor  such  an  immense  will.'  *  Oh,  no,' 
said  another;  'it  is  by  no  means  her  appearance;  it  is  her 
extraordinary  voice  and  the  command  she  has  over  it.  Yet 
there  is  something  strange  in  her  voice  {etrange  dans  sa 
voix).^  'Well,'  said  one  of  the  greatest  singers  Paris  has 
known,  'is  it  not  sufficient  to  have  something  unusual, 
something  that  no  one  else  has,  in  the  timbre  of  the  voice; 
and  may  it  not  be  that,  because  all  the  qualities  you  men- 
tion are  combined  in  her,  she  made  such  an  extraordinary 
impression  upon  her  audience?'  She  came  out  of  the 
struggle  with  flying  colors.  The  strange  part  of  it,  how- 
ever, is  that,  although  she  sang  without  the  slightest  emotion 
before  her  success,  anxiety  seized  upon  her  afterward,  and 
she  got  as  nervous  as  a  little  schoolgirl  at  her  examination. 


56  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

It  was  during  the  conge  (leave)  of  1866  that  she  came  to 
London,  and  sang  at  Her  Majesty's  with  the  same  great 
and  instantaneous  success  as  in  Paris.  On  her  return  to 
France  at  the  expiration  of  her  three  years'  engagement 
with  the  Thd^tre  Lyrique,  she  was  engaged  at  the  Grand 
Op6ra,  where  Ambroise  Thomas,  at  a  loss  to  find  an 
Ophelia  for  his  Hamlet,  seeing  that  the  fair-haired,  poetical, 
dreamy-looking  Swede  combined  all  the  required  qualities 
for  this  difficult  part,  intrusted  her,  as  they  there  say,  with 
the  creation;  and  she  then  remained  three  years,  a  member 
of  the  first  lyric  theatre  in  France,  which  with  our  modest 
neighbors  means  the  first  in  the  world." 

Her  first  visit  to  America,  though  only  a  concert  tour, 
brought  her  $200,000  net  profit,  and  her  manager  made 
$60,000  besides.  After  her  return  to  Europe  she  received 
the  following  letter,  which  gives  a  pleasant  glimpse  of  the 
impression  she  had  made: 

United  States  Senate, 
Dear  Madam:  Washington,  July  12,  1884. 

I  had  the  honor  to  meet  you  at  dinner  at  President 
Arthur's  a  few  weeks  ago.  While  several  guests  were 
seeking  to  exchange  written  cards  with  you,  you  said 
you  would  be  glad  to  get  autographs  of  all  the  Senators; 
and,  as  in  duty  bound,  I  promised  to  obtain  them.  I 
beg  you  to  accept  with  my  respectful  compliments  the 
accompanying  volume,  containing  autographs  of  the  Presi- 
dent, all  the  Cabinet,  all  the  Justices  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  and  all  the  Senators.  The  temporary  absence  of 
some  of  the  Senators  delayed  the  completion  of  the  work. 
I  remain,  Madam, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

Jos.  R.  Hawley. 

Nilsson's  singing  reminded  Luigi  Arditi  greatly  of  Bosio, 
"her  brilliant  fioriture  being  delivered  with  the  same  ex- 


CHRISTINE  NILSSON  57 

quisite  grace  and  refinement  that  characterized  the  style  of 
the  Italian  artist.  Everything  was  in  favor  of  the  young 
Swedish  artist — her  youthful  freshness  (in  itself  a  priceless 
charm)  a  definite  individuality;  her  slight,  supple  figure, 
which  lent  itself  to  the  draping  of  any  classical  robe;  and, 
above  all,  the  voice,  of  extensive  compass,  mellow,  sweet, 
and  rich." 

During  one  season  Nilsson  used  to  study  most  of  her 
parts  with  Arditi  at  his  house,  "and  most  faithfully  and 
conscientiously  did  she  work."  The  same  eminent  con- 
ductor relates  that  Nilsson,  like  most  artists,  suffered  from 
"nerves."  "I  recollect  when  she  came  to  my  house  to  go 
over  her  parts  with  me,  she  used,  while  singing,  to  tear  the 
trimmings  and  laces  off  her  skirts  by  continually  fingering 
them.  Her  lady  companion,  Mme.  Richardson,  was  in 
despair  about  her  dresses,  and  used  to  say  how  she  wished 
it  were  fashionable  for  ladies  to  wear  perfectly  plain  skirts, 
devoid  of  any  kind  of  trimmings,  so  that  Nilsson  could  not 
have  the  chance  of  spoiling  all  her  passementeries.''^ 

A  famous  prima  donna  must  expect  all  sorts  of  experi- 
ences that  will  put  her  nerves  to  the  test.  The  following 
appeared  in  the  Boston  Herald  of  March  18,  1887: 

Once  in  New  York  a  madman  followed  her  for  a  week 
under  the  conviction  that  the  words  of  love  which  he  had 
heard  her,  as  Marguerite,  address  to  Faust,  were  intended 
for  himself.  He  would  spend  the  day  in  front  of  the  hotel 
where  she  was  staying,  and  whenever  she  went  out  he  ran 
alongside  of  her  carriage,  kissing  his  hand  to  her  and  calling 
her  his  Marguerite.  One  evening  when  her  parlor  was  full 
of  company  the  door  suddenly  opened  and  the  lunatic 
rushed  in,  threw  his  arms  around  her,  and  exclaimed: 
"Kiss  me.  Marguerite!"  The  attack  was  so  sudden  and 
the  guests  so  surprised  that  none  of  them  thought  of  going 
to  her  assistance;  she  was  obliged  to  break  away  from  his 
clutches  without  aid,  and  it  was  she  who  rang  the  bell  and 


58  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

sent  for  a  policeman.  At  the  hearing  the  fellow  managed 
to  break  loose  from  the  officers,  again  approached  Nilsson, 
and  began  frantically  to  kiss  her  dress.  In  the  presence  of 
so  unmistakable  symptoms  of  madness  the  prima  donna 
refused  to  prosecute,  and.only  asked  that  he  might  be  kept 
locked  up  until  she  had  left  the  city.  In  Chicago  she  was 
annoyed  by  another  madman,  a  student,  who  had  fallen 
in  love  with  her,  and  was  constantly  writing  to  ask  her  to 
marry  him.  One  day  he  arrived  at  the  door  of  the  hotel  in 
a  sleigh  drawn  by  four  horses,  and  stated  that  he  had  come 
to  take  her  to  church.  Her  manager  got  rid  of  him  by 
assuring  the  fellow  that  he  was  too  late,  and  that  he  would 
find  Nilsson  waiting  for  him  at  the  church. 

Diego  de  Vivo,  in  summing  up  this  artist's  qualities  in 
the  New  York  Sun,  said: 

Christine  Nilsson  excelled  in  the  composition  of  a  scene, 
in  the  power  of  giving  it  its  fullest  importance,  and  of  con- 
centrating upon  it  the  attention  of  the  spectator.  She  was 
most  successful  in  episodes  the  saliency  of  which  was 
added  to  by  her  personal  Swedish  beauty  and  by  her  sin- 
gular aspect,  rather  than  by  the  development  of  a  character 
or  a  complicated  situation.  Hence  her  permanency  as  the 
ideal  Ophelia,  the  ideal  Cherubino,  and  the  ideal  Queen  of 
Night. 

According  to  Dr.  Hanslick,  her  principal  charm  and 
talisman  was  a  simplicity  and  a  sincerity  of  expression 
which  enabled  her  to  move  an  audience  even  where  the 
composer  had  not  provided  an  "effect." 

While  Nilsson  was  "  the  favorite  of  crowned  heads  and 
great  ladies,"  she  never  tried  to  conceal  her  peasant  origin. 
The  photographs  of  her  parents  in  peasant  costume  always 
were  in  her  room,  and  when  she  built  a  magnificent  man- 
sion she  placed  in  it  also  the  violin  which  accompanied  her 
first  folk  songs  at  the  village  fair.     When  she  became 


CHRISTINE  NILSSON  59 

famous  and  rich  she  also  remembered  that  others  had 
helped  her  when  she  was  poor,  and,  following  the  example 
of  Jenny  Lind — who  had  been  the  artistic  model  and  in- 
spiration of  her  youth — she  emulated  her  in  generosity,  too. 
Her  first  earnings  were  devoted  to  buying  a  farm  for  her 
parents  and  another  for  one  of  her  brothers ;  and  thence- 
forth she  was  ever  ready  to  use  her  voice  in  the  service  of 
the  poor  and  the  victims  of  misfortunes,  such  as  the  Chicago 
fire  and  the  inundations  in  Spain.  She  was  twice  married, 
and  is  still  living  (1909).  Her  second  husband  was  Count 
Casa  di  Miranda. 

Prima  donnas  are  supposed  to  be  all  rivalry  and  envy, 
but  when  Nilsson  sang  Mignon  (which  Thomas  had 
specially  altered  to  make  it  suit  her  voice)  at  Baden-Baden 
for  the  first  time,  she  received  a  card  from  the  famous 
Viardot- Garcia  with  these  words :  "  Avec  toute  son  admira- 
tion pour  la  delicieuse  Mignon,"  and  a  note  from  Pauline 
Lucca  saying:  "You  were  sublime,  and  it  gives  me  the 
greatest  pleasure  to  tell  you  so." 

One  more  glimpse  of  this  great  artist  on  the  stage  and 
we  must  ring  down  the  curtain.  Sutherland  Edwards  says 
regarding  her  Traviata:  "She  refined  to  the  utmost  a 
character  sadly  in  want  of  refinement,  and  sang  in  absolute 
perfection  the  expressive  music  of  the  part.  Her  Violetta 
never  went  into  hysterics;  and  she  seemed  to  die,  not  of 
phthisis  aided  and  developed  by  dissipation,  but  of  a 
broken  heart,  like  Clarissa  Harlowe,  or  like  that  Shake- 
spearian maiden  who  never  told  her  love.  Mile.  Piccolo- 
mini's  Violetta  was  a  foolish  virgin;  Mile.  Nilsson's  a 
fallen  angel,". 


ITALIAN  PRIMA  DONNAS 
Adelina  Patti 

There  have  been  a  few  favored  singers  to  whom  the 
exercise  of  their  art  came  as  naturally  as  swimming  does  to 
a  fish,  flying  to  a  bird.  Conspicuous  among  these  is  Ade- 
lina Patti;  and  the  secret  of  her  remarkable  success  lay 
largely  in  the  ease  and  spontaneity  of  her  vocal  utterances. 

Her  musical  gifts  were  hereditary,  her  father,  a  Sicilian, 
having  been  a  good  tenor,  her  Roman  mother  a  noted 
prima  donna.  The  opera  company  to  which  they  belonged 
happened  to  be  in  Madrid  when  Adelina  was  born  (Feb- 
ruary 19,  1843),  and  three  years  later  they  followed  an 
Italian  impresario  to  New  York,  where  she  was  brought 
up.  Thus  it  came  to  pass  that  like  so  many  who  come  to 
America  as  children,  she  came  to  look  on  English  as  her 
mother  tongue.  She  did  not,  however,  forget  her  Italian, 
and  she  also  learned  to  speak  French,  Spanish,  and  Ger- 
man fluently,  although  she  did  not,  like  operatic  artists  of 
to-day,  need  these  languages  on  the  stage,  as  she  nearly 
always  sang  in  Italian. 

It  cost  her  little  effort  to  learn  them — and  less  efiPort  to 
learn  music.  To  Dr.  Hanslick  she  gave,  in  1877,  the  fol- 
lowing concise  account  of  her  childhood  days: 

An  ear  for  music,  a  gift  for  song  and  delight  in  it,  came 
to  me  surprisingly  early,  wherefore  I  received  as  a  mere 

60 


ADELINA  PATTI  6i 

child  lessons  in  singing  from  my  stepbrother^  piano  lessons 
from  my  sister  Carlotta.  .  .  .  Thus  we  lived — three  sis- 
ters and  a  young  and  recently  married  brother,  Carlo 
Patti — in  New  York  with  our  parents,  in  peace  and  free 
from  care.  As  a  little  child  I  was  already  possessed  by  a 
frantic  love  of  music  and  the  theatre.  I  sat  in  the  opera- 
house  every  evening  when  my  mother  sang;  every  melody, 
every  gesture,  was  impressed  on  me  indelibly.  When  the 
performance  was  over  and  I  had  been  taken  home  and  put 
to  bed,  I  got  up  again  stealthily,  and  by  the  light  of  the 
night  lamp  played  over  all  the  scenes  I  had  seen.  A  red- 
lined  mantle  belonging  to  my  father  and  an  old  hat  of  my 
mother's  trimmed  with  feathers  served  me  as  material  for 
diverse  costumes,  and  thus  I  acted,  danced,  twittered 
through  all  the  operas,  barefooted,  but  romantically  at- 
tired.  ... 

A  stroke  of  bad  luck  suddenly  fell  upon  us.  The  im- 
presario became  bankrupt  and  disappeared  without  paying 
the  salaries  due,  the  company  was  disbanded,  and  there 
was  no  more  Italian  opera.  My  parents  found  themselves 
without  income;  we  were  a  large  family,  and  thus  want  and 
distress  soon  made  themselves  felt.  My  father  carried  one 
thing  after  another  to  the  pawnshop,  and  knew  not  on 
many  a  day  what  we  were  to  live  on  the  next.  But  I  knew 
little  of  all  this  and  sang  on  from  morning  till  night.  This 
at  last  attracted  my  father's  attention  and  suggested  to  him 
that  possibly  I  might,  with  my  clear  child-voice,  save  the 
family  from  the  worst  distress.  And,  thank  Heaven,  I  did 
so.  Only  seven  years  old,  I  was  asked  to  appear  as  a 
concert  singer,  and  I  did  it  with  all  the  joy  and  naivete  of  a 
child.  I  was  placed  in  the  concert  hall  on  a  table  near  the 
piano,  in  order  that  the  hearers  might  be  able  to  see  the 
little  doll,  too,  and  there  was  no  lack  of  these,  or  of  ap- 
plause. And  do  you  know  what  I  sang  ?  That  is  the  most 
remarkable  thing  of  all:  nothing  but  florid  arias,  first 
among  them  Una  voce  poco  fa  from  the  Barber,  with 
the  same  embellishments  exactly  that  I  use  to-day,  and 
other  colorature  pieces.    I  had  the  joy  of  seeing  the  pawned 


62  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

clothes  and  jewels  come  back  one  after  another,  and  con- 
tentment and  comfort  prevailed  once  more  in  our  home  * 

Her  mother  was  a  sensible  woman;  she  taught  Adelina 
dressmaking,  for,  she  said,  ''a  voice  is  easily  lost  and  the 
operatic  stage  is  the  most  uncertain  bread-winner" — a 
maxim  which  every  stage  aspirant  should  take  to  heart. 

In  course  of  the  next  two  years  the  little  girl  gave  three 
hundred  concerts,  not  only  in  the  cities  of  the  United 
States,  but  in  Mexico  and  Cuba;  her  concert  in  Santiago 
was  interrupted  by  an  earthquake,  and  there  were  plenty 
of  adventures  elsewhere.  It  was  then  decided  to  let  her 
voice  have  a  rest  for  a  few  years. 

The  concerts  referred  to  were  under  the  management  of 
Maurice  Strakosch,  who  married  Patti's  older  sister 
Amalia.  Subsequently  Strakosch  entered  into  partnership 
with  B.  Ullmann,  impresario  of  the  Italian  Opera  in  New 
York.  This  gave  Adelina  the  desired  opportunity.  She 
was  eager  to  make  her  d6hut  in  opera,  but  she  scorned 
the  idea  of  appearing  in  a  role  of  minor  importance: 
prima  donna,  that  is,  first  woman,  or  nothing,  was  her 
motto. 

Ullmann  at  first  hesitated,  but  on  November  24,  1859, 
the  sixteen-year-old  Patti  was  heard  for  the  first  time  in 
public  in  an  operatic  r61e — Lucia,  with  great  success.  The 
Barber  of  Seville  and  La  Sonnambula  followed  soon.  In 
the  next  year  other  American  cities  were  visited,  and  on 
May  14,  1 86 1,  she  made  her  debut  in  London.  The  result 
of  this  was  that  at  the  second  appearance  the  audience,  the 
excitement,  and  the  enthusiasm  were  as  great  as  in  the 
days  of  Jenny  Lind. 

The  record  of  the  rest  of  her  career  is  simply  a  long 
series  of  stage  triumphs.    The  accent  may  be  placed  on 

*  Musikalische  Stationen,  von  Eduard  Hanslick.  Berlin:  Hofmann  & 
Co.,  1880. 


ADELINA  PATTI  63 

the  "long"  as  well  as  on  the  "triumphs."  It  is  almost 
ludicrous  to  note  Dr.  Hanslick's  exclamation,  written  in 
1879:  "Her  eternal  youth  borders  on  the  miraculous"; 
and  then  to  read  what  the  London  Telegraph  remarked 
anent  her  appearance  at  a  Ganz  concert  twenty-nine  years 
later  (May,  1908):  "Need  it  be  said  that  the  diva,  whose 
first  contribution  to  the  program  was  the  immortal  Voi 
che  sapete,  delighted  her  admirers  yet  again,  and  that  they 
knew  not  how  to  make  enough  of  her  ?  As  the  result,  Mo- 
zart's famous  air  was  supplemented  by  Pur  dicesti,  in 
which  the  shakes  were  compassed  with  all  the  old-time 
perfection  of  finish,  while  Gounod's  Serenade — with  the 
violin  obligato  played  by  Mischa  Elman — proved  on  the 
singer's  lips  a  thing  of  such  irresistible  charm  that  nothing 
would  content  her  hearers  but  a  repetition  of  the  song. 
Later  in  the  afternoon  came  Tosti's  Serenata^  and,  even 
after  so  many  favors,  the  audience  would  not  suffer 
Madame  Patti  to  depart  until  she  had  recalled  countless 
former  triumphs  by  giving  them  Home,  Sweet  Home,  sung 
once  again  with  that  perfect  feeling  for  its  tender  sentiment 
which  has  never  failed  to  stir  her  hearers  to  the  depths  of 
their  nature.  Madame  Patti's  voice  was  better  than  it  has 
been  for  years,  and  it  was  therefore  a  matter  of  course  that 
a  marvellously  beautiful  and  inspiring  performance  should 
arouse  immense  enthusiasm.  But  even  those  best  accus- 
tomed to  the  Patti  ovations  of  the  past  have  seldom  seen  a 
more  thrilling  outburst  of  homage  than  that  evoked  by 
yesterday's  magnificent  display  of  art." 

Thus,  for  nearly  a  decade  more  than  half  a  century  has 
Adelina  Patti  been  able  to  arouse  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
public  and  the  critics.  What  is  the  secret  of  this  longevity 
of  her  voice  ? 

It  lies  in  this,  that  she  never  abused  it  and  always  took 
good  care  of  her  health,  resisting  the  temptations  to  self- 
indulgence  which  her  great  wealth  abundantly  afforded 


64  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

her.  She  carefully  avoided  vocal  overexertion  and  excess 
of  any  kind.  In  her  own  words:  "Never  in  my  whole 
career  have  I  sung  oftener  than  three  times  a  week,  and  to 
this  precaution  I  attribute  my  many  years  of  success." 

Lilli  Lehmann  says  in  her  excellent  book,  How  to 
Sing  J  that  "in  Adelina  Patti  everything  was  united — the 
splendid  voice,  paired  with  great  talent  for  singing,  and 
the  long  oversight  of  her  studies  by  her  distinguished 
teacher  Strakosch.  She  never  sang  roles  that  did  not  suit 
her  voice;  in  her  earlier  years  she  sang  only  arias  and  duets, 
or  single  solos,  never  taking  part  in  ensembles.  She  never 
sang  even  her  limited  repertory  when  she  was  indisposed. 
She  never  attended  rehearsals,  but  came  to  the  theatre  in 
the  evening  and  sang  triumphantly,  without  ever  having 
seen  the  persons  who  sang  and  acted  with  her.  She  spared 
herself  rehearsals,  which,  on  the  day  of  the  performance 
or  the  day  before,  exhaust  all  singers  because  of  the  ex- 
citement of  all  kinds  attending  them,  and  which  contribute 
neither  to  the  freshness  of  the  voice  nor  to  the  joy  of  the 
profession.  .  .  . 

"All  was  absolutely  good,  correct,  and  flawless,  the 
voice  like  a  bell  that  you  seemed  to  hear  long  after  its 
singing  had  ceased. 

"Yet  she  could  give  no  explanation  of  her  art,  and 
answered  all  her  colleagues'  questions  concerning  it  with 
an  ^  Ah,  je  rCen  sais  rien^  (I  know  nothing  about  it)." 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that,  since  the  exercise  of  her 
art  came  to  her  so  easily,  Patti  did  not  have  to  work  at  all. 
Lessons  she  got  in  her  childhood,  as  we  have  seen,  from 
members  of  her  family,  and  these,  as  she  says,  were  quite 
systematic.  Strakosch  also  aided  her,  but  not  to  the  extent 
generally  supposed.  To  cite  her  own  words:  "The  only 
r61e  I  learned  with  him  is  Rosina  in  the  Barber)  subse- 
quently when,  as  an  expert  singer,  I  travelled  in  Europe, 
he  went  through  my  r61es  with  me."    One  of  her  biogra- 


ADELINA  PATTI  65 

phers  *  makes  the  curious  assertion  that  Strakosch  often 
took  her  place  at  rehearsals:  "He  has  gone  so  far  as  to 
sing  her  part  at  rehearsals;  the  initiated  have  often  seen 
him  transformed  into  Rosina,  Lucia,  or  Amina,  replying  in 
character  and  taking  part  in  a  love  duet." 

Throughout  her  career  Patti  kept  up  her  exercises,  but, 
of  course,  they  were  easy  compared  to  those  which  less 
fortunately  endowed  artists  have  to  submit  to.  ''Her  vocal 
organs,"  wrote  Hanslick  in  1879,  "which  she  has  managed 
with  such  consummate  skill  since  her  childhood,  and  with 
the  instinctive  certainty  with  which  the  rest  of  us  perform 
an  ordinary  action,  hardly  need  any  more  practice.  Patti  ex- 
ercises solfeggios  daily  for  half  an  hour,  mostly  mezza  voce; 
the  roles  themselves  she  does  not  go  over.  Never  does  she 
practise  facial  expression  or  gestures  before  the  mirror,  be- 
cause, as  she  thinks,  that  only  yields  grimaces  (singeries)  .^^ 

The  same  Viennese  critic,  who  knew  her  well  and  had 
many  talks  with  her,  speaks  of  some  of  the  remarkable 
things  she  was  able  to  do.  Her  memory  was  amazing. 
She  learned  a  new  role  thoroughly  by  softly  singing  it  two 
or  three  times,  and  what  she  had  once  learned  and  sung 
in  public  she  never  forgot;  so  that  it  was  not  necessary  for 
her  to  take  the  scores  in  her  trunk  when  she  was  on  tour. 
Equally  remarkable  was  her  sense  of  pitch.  Hanslick  was 
present  once  when  she  sang  the  jewel  aria  from  Faust^ 
which  was  followed  by  noisy  demonstrations  of  enthusiasm 
lasting  many  minutes.  Suddenly  Patti,  without  signalling 
the  orchestra,  took  up  again  the  trill  on  b,  the  orchestra 
joined  her  in  the  next  bar,  and  there  was  not  the  least  dif- 
ference in  the  pitch. 

Hanslick' s  assertion  that  she  always  sang  with  pure  in- 
tonation is  not  strictly  true,  for  I  have  heard  her  sing  off 
the  pitch  more  than  once;  but  that  simply  showed  she  is 
human.    The  dozens  of  performances  by  her  I  heard  in 

*  Guy  de  Charnace,  in  Les  Etoiles  du  Chant.    Paris,  1868. 


66  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

the  Academy  of  Music,  New  York,  convinced  me  that  she 
was  above  most  singers  of  her  class — a  model,  especially  to 
her  Italian  countrywomen — in  so  far  as  she  avoided  all 
claptrap  display  not  prescribed  in  her  part,  such  as  abnor- 
mally sustained  high  tones,  interminable  trills,  arbitrary 
tempo,  and  explosive  final  notes. 

Her  evident  relish  of  her  own  work  and  of  stage  life  in 
general  has  been  one  of  the  secrets  of  her  success.  To  be 
sure,  she  enjoyed  the  great  advantage  of  being  entirely 
free  from  nervousness.  Even  when,  as  a  child  of  seven, 
she  first  appeared  as  a  concert  singer,  or  at  sixteen,  on  the 
operatic  stage,  she  was,  by  her  own  testimony,  absolutely 
ignorant  of  what  stage  fright  means. 

Such  are  the  good  points  of  Patti  and  the  advantages 
she  enjoyed.  Unlike  Jenny  Lind,  moreover,  she  had  great 
personal  beauty,  and  beauty  is  a  joy  forever,  on  the  stage 
as  well  as  off. 

As  previously  stated,  Adelina  Patti  earned  in  the  course 
of  four  decades  and  a  half  about  $3,750,000.  Inasmuch 
as  charity  is  a  virtue  but  not  a  duty,  it  would  be  foolish  to 
chide  her  for  investing  a  part  of  her  enormous  earnings  in  a 
splendid  castle  in  Wales  instead  of  founding  schools  and 
hospitals,  as  Lind  did.  Moreover,  she  has  sung  on  numer- 
ous occasions  in  aid  of  meritorious  charities,  especially  in 
England  and  Wales,  the  hospitals  of  Swansea,  Brecon,  and 
Neath,  in  particular,  owing  her  a  debt  of  gratitude. 

That  there  is  one  blot  on  her  artistic  character  cannot  be 
denied.  She  asked  so  much  for  her  services,  particularly  in 
America  (where  Mapleson  had  to  pay  her  $5,000  in  advance 
for  each  appearance),  that  it  was  often  impossible  to  engage 
good  singers  for  the  other  parts  in  an  opera,  which  was  thus 
apt  to  be  bungled  except  so  far  as  her  own  share  in  it  was 
concerned.  This  showed  a  reprehensible  lack  of  considera- 
tion for  the  composers  as  well  as  the  audiences.  In  the  words 
of  La  Mara,  "  she  did  not  regard  her  artistic  mission,  like 


ADELINA  PATTI  67 

Pauline  Garcia  or  Jenny  Lind,with  the  holy  zeal  of  a  prophet 
who  is  impelled  to  proclaim  the  exalted  gospel  of  art." 

Fault  was  often  found  with  Patti,  especially  in  the  last 
two  decades  of  her  stage  career,  for  confining  herself  to  the 
old-fashioned  "prima-donna  operas";  but  this  criticism 
was  injudicious;  she  was  wise  in  doing  what  she  could  do 
best.  There  was  a  time  when  she  was  not  so  wise;  a  time 
when  a  misdirected  ambition  made  her  regard  her  specialty 
almost  with  contempt  and  aspire  to  things  that  were  beyond 
her.  She  was  perfection  itself,  both  as  actress  and  singer, 
in  light  comic  roles,  particularly  Rosina,  in  Rossini's  Barber 
oj  Seville;  Norina,  in  Donizetti's  Don  Pasquale;  Zerlina,  in 
Mozart's  Don  Giovanni.  But  this  did  not  satisfy  her.  "  I 
am  no  buffa!"  she  once  said  to  Hanslick,  tossing  her  head; 
and  when  he  praised  her  Zerlina,  she  retorted:  "I  would 
rather  sing  Donna  Anna,  and  I  shall  sing  her  yet."  But 
when  she  did  attempt  modern  dramatic  parts,  like  Mar- 
guerite, in  Faust;  Valentine,  in  The  Huguenots,  Carmen, 
or  even,  Leonora,  in  //  Trovatore,  she  fell  short  of  the 
achievements  of  many  less  famous  singers.* 

*  Her  repertory  comprised  altogether  forty-one  operas,  as  follows: 

Verdi:  La  Traviaia,  II  Trovatore,  Ernani,  Rigoletto,  Aida,  Luisa  Miller, 
Giovanna  d'Arco,  Les  Vepres  Siciliennes,  Un  Ballo  in  MascJiera. 

Rossini:  II  Barbiere  di  Siviglia,  Semiramide,  La  Gazza  Ladra,  Otello, 
Mo  si  in  Egitto. 

Donizetti:  Lucia  di  Lammermoor,  Don  Pasqicale,  L'Elisir  d'Amore, 
La  Figlia  del  Reggimento,  Linda  di  Chamounix. 

Meyerbeer:  Les  Huguenots,  UEtoile  du  Nord,  Le  Pardon  de  Ploermel, 
Robert  le  Viable. 

Bellini:  La  Sonnambula,  I  Puritani. 

Mozart :  Le  Nozze  di  Figaro,  Don  Giovanni,  II  Flauto  Magico. 

Gounod:  Faust,  Romeo  et  Juliette,  Mireille. 

Auber:  Les  Diamants  de  la  Couronne,  Era  Diavolo. 

Poniatowski:  Gelmina,  Don  Desiderio. 

Bizet:  Carmen. 

Flotow:  Marta. 

Ricci:  Crispino  e  la  Comare, 

Campana:  Esmeralda. 

Lenepveu:  Velleda. 

Cohen:  Estrella. 


68  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

Her  failure  to  reach  a  high  level  in  dramatic  r61es  was  a 
matter  partly  of  temperament,  partly  of  intellectual  lazi- 
ness. Arditi,  who  knew  her  from  her  girlhood,  relates* 
that  she  could  enter  the  room  as  bright  as  a  ray  of  sunshine, 
all  smiles  and  sweetness;  "  but  if  any  one  had  had  the  mis- 
fortune to  ruffle  the  pretty  brows  or  thwart  my  Lady  Wilful, 
her  dark  eyes  would  flash,  her  tiny  fist  would  contract  with 
anger,  and  clouds  would  speedily  gather  across  the  surface 
of  her  laughing  face  and  burst  forth  in  torrents  of  tears 
almost  as  quickly  as  a  flash  of  lightning."  But  depth  of 
feeling  she  had  none.  She  married  the  Marquis  de  Caux, 
but  not  from  affection.  *'  Whoever  saw  her  with  the  Mar- 
quis, before  or  after  their  marriage,  could  entertain  no 
doubt  that  she  did  not  marry  him  for  love.  She  knew  not 
love,  the  'grand  passion.'" 

As  for  her  inteUect,  the  same  friend  of  hers  attests:  "I 
have  never  perceived  in  Adelina  the  least  interest  in  the 
higher  problems  of  mankind — in  science,  politics,  religion, 
not  even  in  belles  lettres.''''  A  book  was  seldom  seen  on  her 
table,  and  he  could  not  even  interest  her  in  the  lightest  of  all 
forms  of  intellectual  exercise — novel  reading. 

It  is  not  of  such  minds,  as  we  shall  see,  that  great  dra- 
matic singers  are  made.  She  was  no  doubt,  as  Lenz  called 
her,  "the  Paganini  of  vocal  virtuosity";  but  she  did  not 
move  the  deeper  feelings.  Berlioz  heard  her  in  1864  as 
Martha,  and  it  is  of  interest  to  read  what  he  wrote  about 
her.f  He  refers  to  her  as  the  "  ravissante  petite  Patti,"  and 
says  that  he  sent  her  word  that  he  pardoned  her  for  having 
made  him  listen  to  such  platitudes,  but  that  he  could  do  no 
more  than  that.  "Fortunately  there  is  in  this  opera  the 
delicious  Irish  air,  The  Last  Rose  of  Summer,  which  she 
sings  with  a  poetic  simplicity  that  would  almost  suffice, 
with  its  sweet  perfume,  to  disinfect  the  rest  of  the  score." 

*  My  Reminiscences.   By  Luigi  Arditi.   New  York:  Dodd,  Mead  &  Co. 
t  Lettres  Intimes.    Paris:  Calmann  L^vy.     1882. 


CATALANI  AND   PASTA  69 

The  most  dramatic  of  all  operas,  those  of  Richard 
Wagner,  Patti  never  attempted,  although  she  became  a 
great  admirer  of  them  in  the  later  years  of  her  career,  being 
a  frequent  attendant  at  the  Bayreuth  festivals.  She  was 
reported  as  having  once  said  that  she  would  sing  Wagner's 
music  after  she  had  lost  her  voice;  but  if  she  ever  did  make 
such  a  silly  remark  she  learned  to  regret  it,  after  hearing 
such  artists  as  Lilli  Lehmann  and  Jean  de  Reszke,  who 
demonstrated  that  a  beautiful  voice  is  as  necessary  for  a 
proper  reproduction  of  the  operas  of  Wagner  as  of  the 
operas  of  Rossini  or  Mozart. 

Catalani  and  Pasta 

There  is  a  story  that  Rossini  once  heard  one  of  his 
arias  sung  by  Patti,  who  so  overloaded  it  with  ornaments 
that  he  asked  her  sarcastically  whose  music  she  was  sing- 
ing. On  being  told  shat  she  had  sung  the  aria  as  Strakosch 
had  taught  it  to  her,  he  pronounced  it  a  "  Stracochonnerie'* 
("cochon"  being  French  for  pig). 

It  was  not  a  polite  speech  to  make,  but  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  Rossini  was  a  great  and  plain-spoken  re- 
former who  insisted  on  writing  his  own  ornaments  for  his 
airs.  Up  to  his  time  the  Italian  composers  had  usually 
supplied  only  the  melodic  thread  for  the  smgers  to  use  for 
their  embroideries,  and  there  was  a  good  deal  of  indigna- 
tion (which  to  us  seems  comic)  when  the  composers  began 
to  do  their  own  embroidering.  "Poor  Italy  1^^  wrote  Tosi, 
"pray  tell  me:  do  not  the  Singers  nowadays  know  where 
the  Appoggiaturas  are  to  be  made,  unless  they  are  pointed 
at  with  a  finger?  In  my  Time  their  own  Knowledge 
showed  it  them.  Eternal  Shame  to  him  who  first  intro- 
duced these  foreign  Puerilities  into  our  Nation."  * 

*  See  the  Observations  on  Florid  Song  of  Pier  Francesco  Tosi.  Lon- 
don, 1743.     Pp.  39,  88. 


70  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

In  Patti's  day  it  was  no  longer  the  rule  for  singers  to  do 
their  own  decorating  of  arias;  during  the  greater  part  of 
her  career  she  confined  herself  generally  to  the  notes  set 
down  by  the  composers.  Her  success,  moreover,  was  due 
quite  as  much  to  the  luscious  beauty  of  her  voice  and  her 
polished  singing  of  sustained  melodies,  unadorned,  as  to 
her  agile  execution  of  embellishments.  To  see  the  old- 
style  florid  song  in  full  bloom  we  must  go  back  a  few 
generations. 

The  career  of  Angelica  Catalani,  who  was  bom  in  1780, 
gives  us  a  good  view  of  the  operatic  ideals  which  prevailed 
during  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries. 

There  is  a  tradition  that  Catalani,  after  hearing  Sontag, 
said:  "She  is  the  first  in  her  style,  but  her  style  is  not  the 
first."  If  she  really  said  this,  she  condemned  her  own 
specialty,  for  it  was  the  same  as  Sontag's — the  florid  style. 
Sontag  sometimes  appropriated  passages  suitable  for  the 
violin  or  the  piano  rather  than  for  the  voice,  but  Catalani 
made  a  habit  of  this;  in  fact,  it  was  the  secret  0}  her  success 
with  the  public.  To  such  an  extent  did  she  indulge  in  in- 
strumental vocalism  that  the  Parisians  called  her  "  1' instru- 
ment Catalani " — a  queer  sort  of  a  compliment  for  a  singer! 

"She  is  fond  of  singing  variations  on  some  well-known 
simple  air,"  wrote  Lord  Mount  Edgcumbe,  "and  latterly 
has  pushed  this  task  to  the  very  height  of  absurdity  by 
singing,  even  without  words,  variations  composed  for  the 
fiddle." 

It  is  nothing  against  Catalani  that,  as  one  writer  says, 
"she  was  a  florid  singer,  and  nothing  but  a  florid  singer, 
whether  grave  or  airy,  in  the  church,  orchestra,  or  upon  the 
stage";  for  one  can  be  a  florid  singer  and  still  be  a  model 
of  good  taste,  as  we  can  see  in  the  case  of  Patti  or  Sembrich; 
but  Catalani  had  no  artistic  conscience;  she  was  ready  to 
do  any  circus  trick  to  win  applause.  "Her  principal 
pl-easure  was  in  the  most  extravagant  and  bizarre  show- 


CATALANI  AND  PASTA  71 

pieces,  such,  for  example,  as  variations  composed  for  the 
violin  on  popular  airs  like  God  Save  the  King,  Rule  Bri- 
tannia, Cease  Your  Funning.''^ 

She  carried  her  departure  from  the  true  limits  of  art  to 
such  an  outrageous  degree  as  to  draw  on  her  head  the 
severest  reprobation  of  all  good  judges,  though  the  public 
listened  to  her  wonderful  execution  with  unbounded  delight 
and  astonishment.*  She  not  only  sang  music  written  for 
fiddle  or  flute,  but  sometimes  chose  real  songs  that  were 
utterly  unsuitable  for  a  woman's  voice;  and  at  times  she 
tried  to  sing  so  loudly  as  to  overpower  the  orchestra,  with 
all  the  brasses. 

An  English  magazine  writer  gives  this  picture  of  her: 
"When  she  begins  one  of  the  interminable  roulades  up 
the  scale,  she  gradually  raises  her  body,  which  she  had 
before  stooped  to  almost  a  level  with  the  ground,  until, 
having  won  her  way  with  a  quivering  lip  and  chattering 
chin  to  the  very  top-most  note,  she  tosses  back  her  head 
and  all  its  nodding  feathers  with  an  air  of  triumph ;  then 
suddenly  falls  to  a  note  two  octaves  and  a  half  lower  with 
incredible  aplomb,  and  smiles  like  a  victorious  Amazon 
over  a  conquered  enemy." 

Her  really  sublime  egotism  is  illustrated  by  an  anecdote 
concerning  an  eminent  Hamburg  musician  who  severely 
criticised  her  vocal  tricks.  She  shrugged  her  beautiful 
shoulders  and  retorted  that  he  was  an  "impious  man;  for, 
when  God  has  given  to  a  mortal  so  extraordinary  a  talent 
as  I  possess,  people  ought  to  applaud  and  honor  it  as  a 
miracle;  it  is  profane  to  depreciate  the  gifts  of  Heaven." 

Personally,  she  was  admired  for  the  purity  of  her  private 
conduct,  "amid  scenes  and  temptations  where  numbers 
would  have  made  shipwreck  of  all  but  professional  fame"; 
and  she  was  also  noted  for  her  generosity.     This,  however, 

*  Great  Singers.  By  George  T.  Ferris.  New  York:  D.  Appleton. 
1880. 


72  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

did  not  extend  to  managers  and  audiences.  Like  Patti, 
and  even  more  so,  she  insisted  on  being  "the  whole  show" 
herself,  when  justice  to  the  opera,  to  its  composer,  and  to 
the  hearers  demanded  a  respectable  ensemble.  When  a 
manager  complained  that  the  sum  asked  by  her  made  it 
impossible  for  him  to  employ  other  artists  of  talent,  her 
husband  replied:  "Talent!  have  you  not  Mme.  Catalani? 
What  would  you  have?  If  you  want  an  opera  company, 
my  wife  with  four  or  five  puppets  is  quite  sufficient." 

When  she  first  appeared  in  England,  the  eminent  tenor 
Braham  was  in  the  same  company,  but  "  her  jealousy  soon 
rid  her  of  so  brilliant  a  competitor."  "  She  would  bear  no 
rival,"  wrote  Lord  Mount  Edgcumbe,  "nor  any  singer 
sufficiently  good  to  divide  the  applause." 

She  was  amazingly  ignorant  of  everything  not  relating 
to  music;  nor  was  her  knowledge  of  that  more  than  super- 
ficial. She  could  not  read  a  new  song  at  sight,  but  had  to 
learn  it  by  playing  it  over  on  the  piano. 

As  a  partial  excuse  for  her  manner  of  singing,  it  might 
be  maintained  that  it  was  not  until  she  applied  herself  to 
the  ornamental  style  that  she  succeeded,  having  failed  in 
her  attempts  with  sustained  and  dramatic  song. 

One  of  her  unique  tricks,  which  always  astonished  her 
audiences,  is  described  as  an  undulating  tone  like  that  of 
a  musical  glass,  higher  than  the  highest  notes  on  the 
pianos  of  her  day.  It  began  with  an  inconceivably  fine 
tone,  which  gradually  swelled  in  volume  till  it  made  the 
ears  vibrate.  "It  particularly  resembled  the  highest  note 
of  the  nightingale,  that  is  reiterated  each  time  more  in- 
tensely, and  which  with  a  sort  of  ventriloquism  seems 
scarcely  to  proceed  from  the  same  bird  that  a  moment 
before  poured  his  delicate  warblings  at  an  interval  so  dis- 
jointed." 

There  is  one  more  respect  in  which  Catalani's  career 
provides  food  for  thought.    She  undertook  for  a  time  to 


CATALANI  AND  PASTA  73 

direct  the  Theatre  Italien  in  Paris,  but  made  a  failure 
of  it — the  usual  result  when  musicians  try  to  be  managers. 

Her  quondam  tenor,  Braham,  made  the  same  mistake. 
He  spent  over  ;£6o,ooo  in  buying  the  Colosseum  and  build- 
ing the  St.  James's  Theatre,  with  the  consequence  that  he 
had  to  go  on  the  stage  again  at  a  time  when  he  should 
have  enjoyed  the  fruits  of  his  labors  in  peace.  Handel, 
Lucca,  lima  di  Murska,  and  Italo  Campanini  are  four 
more  conspicuous  instances  of  musicians  who  would  have 
been  wiser  to  stick  to  their  lasts. 

From  Catalani — whose  chief  defect  was  a  lack  of  ar- 
tistic conscience — it  is  a  pleasure  to  turn  to  another  Italian 
singer  of  infinitely  greater  artistic  respectability — Giuditta 
Pasta.  Though  born  only  eighteen  years  later  than  Cata- 
lani, she  is  much  more  modern  in  taste,  aspirations,  and 
achievements.  She  deserves  our  commendation  the  more 
because  she  had  to  work  like  a  beaver  to  attain  the  emi- 
nence she  aimed  at.  At  the  age  of  eighteen  (she  was  born 
in  1798,  near  Milan)  she  was  for  a  time  in  Catalani's 
opera  company  without  attracting  favorable  attention;  in 
fact,  she  was  a  failure.  Her  voice  was  originally  of  limited 
compass,  weak  and  husky,  and  her  awkward  gestures  and 
general  lack  of  grace  presaged  anything  but  the  famous 
actress  she  was  destined  to  become.  Realizing  her  failure, 
she  retired  from  the  stage  temporarily  to  study  with  a 
famous  singing  master  named  Scappa.  She  never  suc- 
ceeded in  quite  equalizing  her  tones,  and  there  were  times 
when  she  sang  out  of  tune;  but  such  defects  were  forgotten 
in  her  art  of  imparting  "to  every  passage  a  significance 
beyond  the  reach  of  more  spontaneous  singers,"  as  Chor- 
ley,  the  eminent  London  critic,  put  it.  "The  true  secret 
of  her  greatness  was  in  the  intellect  and  imagination  which 
lay  behind  the  voice,  and  made  every  tone  quiver  with 
dramatic  sensibility." 

By  dint  of  hard  work  she  succeeded  in  extending  the 


74  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

compass  of  her  voice  to  two  octaves  and  a  half,  and  in 
greatly  improving  its  quality,  giving  it  richness  and  power; 
its  flexibility,  also,  was  so  much  increased  that  she  became 
famous  as  a  florid  singer;  but  she  showed  her  good  taste 
by  refraining,  except  in  rare  cases,  from  adding  to  the 
ornaments  provided  by  the  composers.  She  overcame  the 
harshness  of  her  high  tones  and  made  of  her  lower  register 
a  medium  for  the  expression  of  passion  in  a  manner  un- 
precedented on  the  operatic  stage.  Her  recitative  and 
her  declamation  were  so  realistic,  so  emotional,  that  she 
made  her  audiences  forget  the  artificial  conventionalities 
of  opera.  **  Her  accents  were  so  plaintive,  so  penetrating, 
so  profoundly  tragical,  that  no  one  could  resist  their  in- 
fluence." 

As  an  operatic  actress.  Pasta  opened  a  new  epoch.  To 
her,  says  Sutherland  Edwards,*  "belongs  the  credit  of 
having  introduced  genuine  acting  into  opera.  Before 
Pasta's  time  the  Italian  singers  contented  themselves  with 
the  conventional  expression,  the  mechanical  gesticulation 
by  which  operatic  singing  will  be  always  more  or  less  dis- 
figured, so  difficult  is  it  to  find  vocal  and  histrionic  talent 
combined  in  the  same  artist.  But  when  Pasta  had  once 
shown  how  beautiful  music  might  be  rendered  intensely 
dramatic,  the  singers  of  her  time  were  obliged,  as  best  they 
could,  to  follow  her  example." 

Her  dramatic  art  saved  Bellini's  Norma  from  being  a 
.  failure  when  first  produced  in  London.  For  her  Bellini 
.*  wrote  his  Sonnamhula;  this,  however,  though  she  made  it 
famous,  gave  her  histrionic  power  less  scope  than  Rossini's 
Otello,  in  which  she  aroused  the  most  extraordinary  enthu- 
siasm, not  only  on  the  part  of  the  public  but  of  the  pro- 
fessionals, including  the  critics.     Her  skill  as  an  actress 

*  The  Prima  Donna:  Her  History  and  Surroundings,  from  the  Seven- 
teenth to  the  Nineteenth  Centuries.  By  H.  Sutherland  Edwards.  Two 
vols.     London:  Remington  &  Co.    New  York:  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 


TETRAZZINI:    A    MUSICAL    MYSTERY     75 

was  most  eloquently  attested  by  the  great  Talma  in  these 
words:  " Here  is  a  woman  of  whom  I  can  still  learn.  One 
turn  of  her  beautiful  head,  one  glance  of  her  eye,  one  light 
motion  of  her  hand,  is,  with  her,  sufficient  to  express  a 
passion.  She  can  raise  the  soul  of  the  spectator  to  the 
highest  pitch  of  astonishment  by  one  tone  of  her  voice. 
O  Diol  as  it  comes  from  her  breast,  swelling  over  her  lips, 
is  of  indescribable  efifect." 

It  is  gratifying  to  record  that  while  Pasta  never  stooped 
to  conquer  the  masses,  as  Catalani  did,  she  was  no  less 
successful  in  earning  big  emoluments.  Her  operatic  salary 
alone  was  at  one  time  ;£i 4,000  ($70,000)  a  year.  Wiser 
than  most  prima  donnas,  she  deposited  her  savings  in  a 
bank  instead  of  squandering  them,  but,  unfortunately,  she 
chose  the  wrong  bank.  It  failed,  and,  like  so  many  others, 
she  had  to  reappear  on  the  stage  after  her  voice  had  lost 
its  charm.  But  even  then  the  consummate  artist  was  rec- 
ognizable. When  Viardot- Garcia  heard  her  the  last  time, 
she  compared  her  to  Leonardo  da  Vinci's  ^'Last  Sup- 
per'': *' A  wreck  of  a  picture,  but  the  picture  is  the  great- 
est in  the  world." 

Tetrazzini:  A  Musical  Mystery 

A  modern  Pasta  would  doubtless  delight  all  opera-goers. 
Would  a  Catalani  do  the  same?  Not  all  of  them.  The 
critics  would  rend  her  savagely,  yet  she  would  probably 
have  large  and  enthusiastic  audiences.  The  general  pub- 
lic loves  florid  song  as  much  as  ever. 

In  summing  up  the  results  of  the  spring  and  summer 
season  of  opera  in  London  (1908)  the  critics  agreed  that 
a  great  success  had  been  won  by  Miss  Destinn,  the  dra- 
matic soprano  of  the  Royal  Opera  in  Berlin,  but  that  nev- 
ertheless the  chief  honors  went  to  Mme.  Melba  and  Mme. 
Tetrazzini.    The  latter  represent  the  florid  style  of  singing. 


76  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

The  submarine  cables  almost  melted  from  the  glowing 
accounts  of  their  triumphs.  When  Mme.  Melba  celebrated 
the  twentieth  anniversary  of  her  debut  in  London  (on  June 
24,  1908),  society,  headed  by  the  King  and  Queen,  filled 
the  house;  and  when  the  prima  donna  came  to  the  tre- 
mendous piece  of  virtuosity  which  brings  the  first  act  of 
La  Traviata  to  a  close,  ''the  audience,"  according  to  one 
of  the  London  journalists,  "  held  its  breath."  The  reporter 
adds: 

Her  vocal  gymnastics  were  simply  amazing,  and  her  own 
intense  enjoyment  of  them  was  delightful.  Up  and  down 
the  scale  she  went,  in  trills  and  runs  and  roulades,  and 
when  she  ended,  like  a  fireworks  display,  with  a  brilliant 
shower  of  golden  notes,  the  whole  house  rose  and  applauded 
with  all  its  might. 

When  Lursa  Tetrazzini  made  her  d^but  in  London,  in 

the  autumn  of  1907,  she  created  a  sensation  such  as  few 
singers  have  ever  achieved.  This  achievement  she  re- 
peated in  New  York  a  few  months  later;  she  saved  the 
season  at  the  Manhattan  Opera  House,  and  the  newspapers 
had  pages  about  her  career  and  her  art.  Her  second  en- 
gagement in  London  proved  no  less  successful.  Yet  she 
is  by  no  means  a  singer  of  the  rank  of  Patti,  Melba,  or 
Sembrich,  her  voice  being  perfect  only  in  its  top  register. 
Nor  is  she  remarkable  as  an  actress.  That  she  should 
have  created  so  extraordinary  a  sensation  is  certainly 
strange,  if  not  mysterious;  but  this  is  not  the  mystery  we 
have  in  mind  at  present. 

That  mystery  is  of  much  wider  scope.  It  is  the  mystery 
of  florid  music  in  general.  Why  have  the  composers  of  all 
countries  given  up  writing  such  music  when  the  public  at 
large  evidently  likes  it  better  than  anything  else,  demands 
it  with  applausive  violence,  and  showers  diamonds  on  the 


TETRAZZINI:    A  MUSICAL  MYSTERY     77 

Pattis  and  Sembrichs,  the  Melbas  and  Tetrazzinis  who 
provide  it? 

The  Italians  who  founded  opera,  three  centuries  ago, 
had  high  ideals.  They  were  so  anxious  that  the  hearers 
should  understand  the  words  to  which  the  music  had  been 
wedded  that  they  deliberately  avoided  not  only  ornament, 
but  even  melody  (Caccini  boasted  of  his  "noble  contempt" 
for  it) ,  using  instead  of  it  a  dry,  tuneless  recitative.  But  the 
public  soon  tired  of  that  sort  of  thing,  and  the  shrewd  com- 
posers, willing  to  please,  began  to  supply  not  only  tunes 
but  highly  ornamented  arias,  which  the  singers  still  further 
embroidered  in  a  most  lavish  style.  This  fashion  contin- 
ued throughout  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries; 
even  great  masters  like  Handel  and  Mozart  were  com- 
pelled to  bow  to  the  will  of  the  public.  Gluck  raised  a  pro- 
test, but  it  had  little  effect  except  in  Paris,  where  Rameau 
had  prepared  the  ground  for  him.  It  was  not  till  Beetho- 
ven, Weber,  and  Wagner  came  forward  and  stubbornly 
refused  to  cater  to  the  demand  for  meaningless  staccati, 
trills,  rapid  scales,  cadenzas,  explosive  and  long-drawn-out 
high  tones,  that  the  spell  was  broken. 

And  now  happened  a  strange  thing — a  phenomenon  be- 
lying the  teachings  of  the  economists  regarding  demand 
and  supply.  All  the  composers  of  all  countries,  the  great 
as  well  5.S  the  small,  followed  in  the  footsteps  of  the  men 
just  named,  defied  the  paying  public,  and  contemptuously 
and  persistently  ignored  its  eager  demand  for  ornamental 
music.  In  the  German  operas  since  Wagner,  including 
those  of  Humperdinck  and  D'Albert,  you  will  listen  in 
vain  for  florid  airs;  you  will  not  hear  them  in  the  popular 
operas  of  modern  Frenchmen;  Gounod  employed  them 
very  sparingly;  Bizet  not  at  all;  florid  music  is  not  to  be 
found  in  the  works  of  Charpentier,  of  Bruneau,  of  Saint- 
Saens;  while  the  latest  of  the  Frenchmen,  Debussy,  es- 
chews not  only  all  ornaments,  but  has  gone  back  to  the 


78  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

recitative  of  the  first  opera  composers.  Stranger  still,  the 
Italians,  who  originated  florid  music  and  for  centuries 
enraptured  all  the  world  with  it,  also  have  given  it  up  com- 
pletely. Verdi,  in  his  early  operas,  still  made  some  use  of 
it,  but  when  his  genius  matured  and  he  came  to  write 
Alda,  Otello,  and  Falstaff,  he  avoided  it  as  scrupulously  as 
Wagner  or  Debussy;  and  all  the  young  Italians  followed 
his  example.  In  the  operas  of  Mascagni  and  Leoncavallo, 
of  Boito  and  Puccini,  and  their  colleagues,  the  decorative 
style  known  as  colorature  is  absolutely  tabooed.    Why  ? 

In  the  reminiscences  of  Spaun  we  read  how  Schubert 
used  to  be  delighted  by  the  vocal  art  of  the  prima  donna 
Milder  (for  whom  Beethoven  wrote  the  r61e  of  Fidelio). 
One  evening,  after  a  performance  of  a  Gluck  opera,  he 
went  to  a  tavern  with  a  friend,  the  poet  Mayrhofer.  Their 
enthusiastic  discourse  was  rudely  interrupted  by  another 
man  present,  who  declared  that  it  was  disgraceful  to  engage 
a  singer  like  Milder,  as  she  "could  sing  no  runs  or  trills." 
This  was  too  much  for  the  enthusiasts.  Schubert  jumped 
up  and  gave  this  lover  of  florid  song  a  piece  of  his  mind 
as  to  what  true  singing  meant. 

Another  anecdote.  The  "violin  King,"  Joachim,  was 
once  asked  why  he  had  so  little  sympathy  with  the  admirers 
of  a  certain  prima  donna  who  was  famous  for  her  fioriiure. 
Upon  which  he  gave  this  answer:  "What  would  you 
have?  Here  have  I  been  endeavoring  all  my  life  to  imi- 
tate on  the  violin  the  exquisite  tones  of  the  human  voice;  this 
singer,  on  the  contrary,  only  seeks  to  imitate  my  violin." 

These  two  anecdotes  explain  why  persons  of  musical 
culture,  as  a  rule,  do  not  care  for  colorature,  and  also  why 
great  modern  composers  like  Wagner  and  the  mature 
Verdi  dispensed  with  it.  But  why  do  men  like  Mascagni 
and  Leoncavallo,  who  are  making  such  frantic  efforts  to 
catch  the  public  ear,  avoid  it?  Both  have  tried  to  write 
like  Wagner,  like  the  modem  Frenchmen,  and,  of  course, 


TETRAZZINI:    A  MUSICAL  MYSTERY     79 

like  the  Italians,  old  and  new;  but  one  thing  they  have 
avoided — the  florid  style;  and  in  that  exception  lies  the 
mystery. 

Why  should  not  composers  of  the  rank  of  Mascagni 
and  Leoncavallo  construct  arias  trimmed  with  the  baubles 
the  public  likes  so  much?  In  literature,  in  all  the  other 
arts,  the  public  gets  what  it  wants  in  an  up-to-date  guise. 
But  in  music  it  is  obliged  to  put  up  with  stale,  silly  operas, 
the  very  names  of  which  make  one  yawn,  for  the  sake  of 
hearing  the  beloved  Melba,  Sembrich,  or  Tetrazzini. 
It  is  useless  to  tell  the  public  that  florid  music  is  less 
artistic  than  dramatic  song;  you  might  as  well  warn  it 
against  reading  the  journals  it  likes  best.  After  all,  it  is 
no  crime  to  take  delight  in  vocal  arpeggios,  long-drawn-out 
trills,  rapid  diatonic  scales,  and  Eifel-tower  tones;  and  it 
must  always  be  remembered  that  a  Viardot,  a  Lehmann, 
a  Calv6  can  put  soul  even  into  such  things.  Therefore, 
since  we  must  have  such  music  for  the  clamorous  public, 
let  us  at  any  rate  have  it  in  new  operas  and  with  new 
flourishes,  and  let  us  bury  that  silly  old  Sonnambula  and 
its  companions  for  good  and  all.* 

W.  J.  Henderson  has  aptly  remarked  that  "if  this  were 
not  a  period  almost  barren  of  colorature  singers  and  florid 
music,  Mme.  Tetrazzini  would  perhaps  have  made  less 
stir.  One  thing  is  certain,"  he  adds,  "and  it  is  that  in 
this  success  lies  a  pregnant  suggestion  for  young  singers. 
Those  with  light,  flexible  voices  should  devote  themselves 
to  florid  song."  It  will  long  remain  true  that  "  the  singer 
who  can  rattle  off  staccati  faster  than  any  one  else,  who 
can  trill  longer  than  her  rivals,  who  can  run  more  rapid 
scales,  and  who  can  reach  higher  notes — for  her  the  honor, 
the  glory,  the  corsage  bouquets  torn  from  fair  bosoms,  and 
the  ever- to-be  desired  upward  flight  of  the  salary." 

*  Goldmark  may  have  had  this  view  in  mind  when  he  composed  his. 
opera  A  Winter's  Tale,  in  which  florid  air§  are  introduced. 


8o  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

At  the  same  time  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the 
modern  operatic  repertory  calls  chiefly  for  dramatic  sing- 
ers, and  that  in  the  florid  field  only  those  of  sensational 
endowments  can  at  present  hope  to  succeed.  The  florid 
singer  has  no  big  orchestra  to  help  her  out  in  weak  mo- 
ments, as  the  dramatic  singer  has;  a  failure  on  her  part  is, 
therefore,  the  more  conspicuous.  Another  disadvantage 
is  that  she  is  obliged  to  bear  the  whole  burden  on  her 
shoulders,  having  to  appear  in  operas  which  for  the  most 
part  would  have  long  ago  been  shelved  but  for  the  popular 
prima  donnas  who  appear  in  them.  Of  Rossini's  39  operas 
only  two  have  survived;  of  Donizetti's  67,  only  three  or 
four;  of  Bellini's  11,  only  one.  And  there  is  a  limit  to  the 
weight  which  even  these  singers  can  bear.  Tetrazzini,  on 
the  top  wave  of  her  popularity,  could  not  in  New  York 
revive  popular  interest  in  Meyerbeer's  Dinorah  or  Bel- 
lini's I  Puritani,  and  similar  failures  are  on  record  in  the 
activities  of  her  leading  rivals. 

One  rather  amusing  instance  may  be  cited  from  my 
days  of  critical  storm  and  stress  (1896-7): 

"There  was  a  time — not  so  very  long  ago — when  com- 
posers of  the  first  rank  were  obliged  to  write  operas  to  order 
for  prima  donnas,  just  as  tailors  make  garments  for  society 
women.  Even  Mozart  and  Rossini  had  to  submit  to  this 
tyrannic  custom  early  in  their  career.  Semiramide  is  an 
opera  of  this  type,  its  only  excuse  for  existence  being  that 
it  gives  two  or  three  singers  a  chance  to  show  off  their  vocal 
agility,  as  was  the  case  last  night  when  the  cast  included 
Mme.  Melba,  Mme.  Scalchi,  and  M.  Edouard  de  Reszke. 
Mme.  Melba  and  M.  de  Reszke  sang  admirably,  yet  the 
audience  was  not  large,  nor  did  it  ever  warm  up  sufficiently 
to  clamor  for  an  encore.  In  truth,  it  was  a  funereal  enter- 
tainment, the  severest  criticism  on  which  was  the  stampede 
of  the  audience.  Half  the  boxes  and  rows  of  seats  in  the 
parquet  were  empty  before  the  end  of  the  opera,  although 


TETRAZZINI:    A  MUSICAL  MYSTERY     8i 

that  came  at  the  very  early  hour  of  10.50.  It  is  to  be 
hoped  that  this  is  the  last  experiment  to  revive  this  hope- 
lessly antiquated  opera.  Semiramide,  like  other  works  of 
its  class,  was  not  intended  to  be  listened  to  from  beginning 
to  end.  The  Italians  for  whom  it  was  written  chatted  and 
ate  ices  except  when  a  florid  aria  or  duo  was  turned  on. 
When  Rossini  produced  this  opera  he  was  accused  of  imi- 
tating the  Germans,  because  he  smothered  the  voices  'by 
the  overwhelming  weight  of  the  orchestra'!  The  charge 
is  as  amusing  as  Rossini's  utter  disregard  of  the  dramatic 
spirit  of  the  play  in  his  music.  The  chorus,  for  instance, 
which  is  sung  when  the  ghost  of  Ninus  appears,  would 
lead  one  to  infer  that  a  picnic  was  going  on.  The  opera 
was  well  enough  staged,  but  it  should  not  be  staged  at  all. 
Requiescat  in  pace.'''' 

But  let  us  return  to  Tetrazzini  and  discuss  the  secret  of 
her  success.  It  lay  in  part,  as  already  intimated,  in  the 
rarity  of  good  colorature  singers  to-day  and  in  the  public's 
abiding  love  for  that  sort  of  thing.  In  part  it  lay  in  the 
astonishing  ease  with  which  she  executed  the  most  difficult 
feats  of  vocalization  in  the  highest  position  and  the  beauty 
of  her  tones  in  that  position.  Not  infrequently  there  issues 
from  her  throat  a  group  of  notes  that  move  a  sensitive 
listener  to  tears  by  their  sheer  sensuous  beauty.  N<sn'  is 
her  singing  without  warmth.  She  realizes  the  importance 
of  the  heart  as  an  ally  of  the  throat.  "  Remember  this," 
she  said  one  day  to  a  reporter  of  the  New  York  Sun: 
"  You  can  train  the  voice.  You  can  take  the  raw  material 
and  make  of  it  a  finished  product;  not  so  the  heart.  It  is 
there  or  it  is  not  there;  if  it  is  not  there  you  will  never 
move  an  audience  to  tears.  You  will  never  find  sympathy 
responding  to  your  lack  of  sympathy;  tears  to  a  tearless 
voice,  never!" 

Unlike  most  singers,  Mme.  Tetrazzini  never  suffers 
from  stage  fright.    She  began  to  sing  when  she  was  three 


82  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

years  old.  The  faculty  of  imitation  had  something  to  do 
with  her  becoming  an  artist.  Her  older  sister  was  an  ar- 
tist whose  success  fired  her  ambition.  The  parents  thought 
one  prima  donna  was  enough  for  any  family.  She  thought 
differently.  "  If  one  prima  donna  is  good,  why  would  not 
two  be  better?"  She  studied  hard  with  Professor  Coc- 
cherini  for  six  months  and  then  he  told  her  he  could  teach 
her  nothing  more. 

"I  have  never,"  she  continued,  "had  any  active  training 
and  teaching  since  those  days,  but  the  fact  that,  as  he  said, 
he  could  teach  me  nothing  more  did  not  mean  that  I  had 
nothing  more  to  learn,  for  after  the  doors  of  the  Lyc^e  are 
closed  behind  one  and  the  farewells  to  the  teacher  are  said 
comes  the  hardest  work  of  all,  the  work  that  one  has  to 
teach  oneself,  that  no  one  can  impart,  the  education 
in  one's  profession  that  comes  through  the  individual 
herself." 

It  would  have  been  better,  one  feels,  had  Professor 
Coccherini  known  enough  to  teach  her  longer  than  six 
months.  She  might  have  been  able,  perhaps,  to  secure 
that  equality  of  tonal  beauty  in  all  registers  which  was 
the  greatest  of  Patti's  vocal  charms.  It  is  significant 
that  after  the  severe  criticisms  to  which  she  was  subjected 
when  she  first  appeared  in  New  York,  she  evidently 
began  to  cultivate  her  voice  more  carefully,  for  in  the 
following  season  the  inequality  in  her  tones  was  much  less 
noticeable. 

She  does  not  practise  during  a  season  except  when 
learning  new  rdles.  In  the  matter  of  diet  she  avoids  highly 
spiced  dishes  and  finds  all  greasy  foods  very  bad  for  the 
vocal  cords. 

Her  favorite  opera  is  Lucia^  doubtless  because  in  that 
she  finds  the  public  most  enthusiastic  over  her  art.  "I 
try,"  she  said  to  the  Sun^s  reporter,  "to  phrase  my  part 
according  to  the  meaning  of  the  words";  and  this  she  does 


TETRAZZINI:    A  MUSICAL  MYSTERY     S^ 

even  in  florid  music:  "At  the  end  of  Ah,  jors  e  lui  {La 
Traviata)y  which  is  so  much  admired  by  the  New  York 
people,  the  upward  trill  I  endeavor  to  make  express  the 
hysterical  feeling  of  Violetta." 


TWO   SPANISH   SISTERS 
Pauline  Viardot- Garcia 

Once  upon  a  time  Mozart's  Don  Giovanni  was  chosen 
for  performance  at  Florence,  Italy,  but  after  thirty-six 
rehearsals  it  was  given  up  as  beyond  the  powers  of  singers 
and  players.  The  same  thing  happened  in  1862-3  to 
Wagner's  Tristan  and  Isolde,  which  was  given  up  in 
Vienna  after  fifty-four  rehearsals.  ''Ever  since  the  first 
postponement  of  the  Tristan  rehearsals,"  Wagner  wrote, 
''  the  musical  press  of  Vienna  had  found  its  favorite  occu- 
pation in  the  attempt  to  prove  that  my  work  could  not 
possibly  be  performed  under  any  circumstances.  That  no 
singer  could  hit  on  my  notes,  or  remember  them — this 
assertion  became  the  motto  of  all  who  wrote  and  spoke 
about  me  in  any  part  of  Germany."  Then  he  contrasts 
with  this  an  experience  he  had  in  Paris  when  Mme.  Viar- 
dot-Garcia  sang  a  whole  act  oj  Isolde  at  sight  I 

To-day,  when  Wagner's  operas  are  sung  everywhere,  it 
is  somewhat  difficult  to  realize  what  a  feat  that  was. 
There  was  no  malice  in  the  attitude  of  the  Viennese  sing- 
ers, as  Wagner  suspected.  Von  Hiilsen,  the  manager  of 
the  Berlin  Opera,  wrote  to  Eduard  Devrient  for  informa- 
tion as  to  why  Tristan  had  been  given  up  in  Vienna,  and 
Devrient  told  him  in  detail  about  the  persistent  and  vain 
attempts,  with  his  best  singers,  to  master  Wagner's  difficult 
vocal  style,  adding  that  the  opera  had  also  been  given  up 

84 


PAULINE  VIARDOT-GARCIA  85 

as  impossible  in  two  other  cities;  and  Franz  Dingelstedt 
wrote  to  Hiilsen  from  Weimar  in  a  similar  strain,  declaring 
that  in  Liszt's  opinion  the  second  act  would  have  to  be 
revised  and  that  Wagner  himself  was  convinced  of  the 
same  thing. 

Yet  Pauline  Viardot- Garcia  sang  that  act  at  sight,  not 
only  correctly,  but  in  such  a  way  as  to  impress  the  com- 
poser! And  she  was  not  a  trained  Wagner  singer.  The 
thoroughness  of  her  art  could  not  have  been  more  strik- 
ingly illustrated. 

She  was  the  sister  of  the  greatest  singing  teacher  the 
world  has  ever  known,  Manuel  Garcia,  who  died  in  1906, 
aged  one  hundred  and  two;  the  sister  also  of  Malibran, 
one  of  the  greatest  contraltos  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
and  the  father  of  these  three  exceptionally  talented  musi- 
cians was  Manuel  del  Popolo  Vicente  Garcia,  renowned 
as  tenor,  teacher,  and  composer. 

It  seemed  as  if  Spain,  in  despair  at  never  having  given 
birth  to  a  composer  of  the  first  rank,  had  made  a  supreme 
effort  with  the  Garcia  family  to  place  herself  at  any  rate 
in  the  front  rank  as  the  birthplace  of  singers  and  teachers 
— and  with  brilliant  success  1 

Pauline's  father  was,  in  the  words  of  Liszt,*  "the  per- 
fect type  of  an  impassioned,  fiery  singer,  of  boundless 
talent  and  vitality,  with  imagination,  warmth,  and  artistic 
vigor."  Her  mother,  too,  was  a  noted  stage  singer,  and 
her  sister  Maria,  who  subsequently  became  famous  under 
the  name  of  her  first  husband,  Malibran,  was  already 
winning  laurels  in  Paris  w.hen  she  herself  was  a  child  of 
three.  Like  the  Patti  family,  the  Garcias  tried  their  oper- 
atic fortune  in  European  cities  and  then  in  America.  At 
first  with  indifferent  success.  Then  they  went  to  Mexico, 
where   Pauline  got   her  first   piano   lessons.     Here   her 

*  Essay  on  Pauline  Viardot-Garcia,  in  his  Gesammelte  Schriften,  Band 
III. 


86  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

father  won  a  fortune,  but  when  about  to  return  to  Europe 
a  band  of  robbers  attacked  his  company  and  took  all  his 
earnings — $30,000.  To  add  insult  to  injury,  they  made 
Garcia  sing  for  them — the  Mexicans  are  so  fond  of  music! 

It  was  from  her  mother  that  Pauline  got  her  singing  les- 
sons; but  on  their  return  from  Mexico  to  Paris  she  began, 
as  a  child  of  eight,  to  play  the  piano  for  her  father  when  he 
gave  lessons  to  others.  Concerning  this  she  once  wrote 
to  La  Mara:  "I  believe  I  profited  more  by  this  than  the 
pupils  themselves."  That  she  was  a  good  accompanist 
may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  Liszt,  a  few  years  later, 
accepted  her  as  a  pupil;  and  at  the  age  of  fifteen  she  played 
in  public — so  well  that  Moscheles  hailed  her  as  a  colleague. 

When  training  her  voice  she  seemed  to  find  the  given 
exercises  insufficiently  difficult  and  wrote  solfeggios  to  suit 
herself.  George  Sand,  who  used  her  as  a  model  for  the 
heroine  of  her  Consuelo,  spoke  of  her  as  "one  of  those  rare, 
fortunate  individuals  to  whom  work  is  a  delight,  a  recrea- 
tion, nay,  an  indispensable  normal  condition,  while  inac- 
tivity would  be  to  her  an  exhausting  effort,  a  morbid  state, 
were  she  capable  of  it." 

Versatility  is  the  key-note  of  Viardot's  artistic  character. 
Her  first  triumphs  were  won  in  the  ornate  operas  of  Ros- 
sini; Liszt  declared  that  among  all  the  charming  Rosinas 
(in  //  Barbiere)  on  the  stage  none  quite  equalled  her  either 
as  a  singer  or  an  actress.  Then  she  appeared  as  Fides,  in 
Meyerbeer's  Prophete,  and  astonished  the  Parisians  by  her 
dramatic  realism  and  force.  And  again  she  chose  an  en- 
tirely different  style,  appearing  in  Gluck's  Orpheus  with 
such  amazing  success  that  this  opera,  which  had  been 
neglected  by  the  Parisians  for  thirty  years,  was  given  150 
times  to  crowded  audiences. 

''This  is  divinely  beautiful,"  wrote  Berlioz,  the  Gluck 
enthusiast;  and  the  other  musicians  followed  suit.  "She 
makes  every  rdlc  a  unique  occurrence  in  the  history  of 


PAULINE  VIARDOT-GARCIA  87 

singing,"  said  Theodore  Pelloquet.  And  not  only  the 
musicians  lost  their  heads.  ''Did  not,"  exclaims  La 
Mara,  "De  Musset  and  Turgenieff  sing  of  her,  George 
Sand  and  Liszt  sketch  her  portrait  with  poetic  pen,  as 
Ary  Scheffer  painted  it  in  colors  and  Millet  formed  it  in 
marble?  Did  not  Meyerbeer,  Gounod,  Berlioz  write 
music  for  her?  Did  not  the  list  of  her  friends  include 
Rossini,  Chopin,  Chorley,  Delacroix,  Adelaide  Ristori, 
Henry  Martin,  Renan,  Manin,  and  many  others?" 

One  phase  of  Mme.  VLardot's  versatility  was  that  she 
was  a  society  queen.  She  spoke  the  leading  European  lan- 
guages fluently;  famous  men  and  women  from  all  coun- 
tries attended  her  social  gatherings  in  Paris  and  at  Baden- 
Baden,  at  which  the  King  and  Queen  of  Prussia,  the 
Grand  Duke  and  Duchess  of  Baden  also  were  to  be  seen 
frequently.  As  a  composer,  too,  she  won  some  distinction. 
Some  of  her  operettas  were  sung  at  her  residence  at  Baden- 
Baden,  and  while  her  own  songs  are  not  known  to  the 
public  to-day,  her  arrangements  of  Chopin's  mazurkas  for 
the  voice  are  frequently  heard.  And,  finally,  she  gave 
young  students  the  benefit  of  her  art  and  experience  by 
teaching. 

Among  her  famous  pupils  were  Pauline  Lucca,  Desiree- 
Art6t,  Marianne  Brandt,  Schroder-Hanfstangl,  Aglaja 
Orenji,  Bianca  Bianchi,  Antoinette  Sterling,  and  Mathilde 
Phillips. 

Mme.  Viardot  is  still  living  (1909).  Her  voice  is  gone,  but 
what  made  it  so  great — her  brilliant  mind — is  with  her 
still,  and,  as  in  the  days  of  her  operatic  triumphs,  all  artis- 
tic and  literary  Paris  is  at  her  feet.  Nor  has  she  ceased  to 
teach  and  to  compose. 


88  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 


Maria  Malibran 

While  Pauline  Viardot  is  hale  and  active  at  the  age  of 
seventy-seven,  and  her  brother  Manuel  lived  one  hundred 
and  two  years,  their  brilliant  sister  Maria  did  not  survive 
her  twenty-eighth  year;  yet  she  crowded  into  those  few 
years  more  glory  and  romance  than  any  other  singer  the 
world  has  ever  known. 

Not  a  few  music  teachers  have  been  notorious  for  their 
rudeness,  but  the  elder  Garcia  probably  takes  the  palm  in 
this  respect.  It  is  related  that  in  giving  lessons  to  his 
children  he  sometimes  beat  them  till  they  screamed. 
When  the  shrieks  became  so  loud  as  to  arrest  passers-by, 
the  neighbors  would  calm  them  with  the  remark:  "It  is 
only  Monsieur  Garcia  teaching  his  daughters  to  sing." 

In  referring  to  this  strict  discipline,  Maria  once  said: 
"Father's  eyes  are  so  powerful  that  under  their  influence 
I  could  jump  from  the  fifth  floor  to  the  street  without  suf- 
fering injury." 

Her  fear  of  him  once  contributed  materially  to  her  suc- 
cess. The  manager  of  the  Italian  opera  in  New  York  de- 
manded unexpectedly  a  performance  of  Rossini's  OtellOy 
in  which  Garcia  was  reputed  to  be  at  his  best  in  the  title 
r61e.  Maria,  then  seventeen  years  old,  was  cast  for  Des- 
demona,  but  as  she  had  had  little  time  to  prepare  herself 
for  the  part  she  refused  to  take  it;  her  father,  however, 
compelled  her  to  go  on  and  threatened,  in  case  she  did  not 
do  her  best,  to  use  his  weapon — a  real  dagger.  ■'  In  the  last 
scene,  which  he  was  wont  to  play  very  realistically,  she 
suddenly  remembered  his  threat,  and  exclaimed  in  great 
anguish:  "Padre,  padre,  per  Dios  no  me  mate"  (Father, 
father,  for  God's  sake,  do  not  kill  me).  The  audience 
took  her  real  fear  for  the  perfection  of  histrionic  art — 
doubly  marvellous  in  one  so  young — and  applauded  wildly. 


MARIA  MALIBRAN  89 

Garcia,  on  his  part,  maintained  that  his  severe  treat- 
ment of  his  daughter  was  a  necessity  because  of  her  wilful, 
unbridled  character.  She  was  certainly  wont  to  indulge 
in  the  wildest  pranks  and  to  take  the  most  imprudent  risks 
with  her  voice.  After  singing  till  one  o'clock  at  night  she 
would  not  hesitate  to  go  to  the  drawing-room  of  a  society 
leader  and  sing  songs  till  three  o'clock,  yet  at  nine  in  the 
morning  one  could  see  her  taking  her  exercise  on  horse 
back  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne.  It  was  her  passion  for 
horseback-riding  that  caused  her  early  death.  One  morn- 
ing she  insisted  on  mounting  a  young  and  fiery  steed,  and 
was  thrown  and  dragged  on  the  ground.  Her  face  was 
mutilated  and  she  suffered  a  concussion  of  the  brain;  yet 
she  stubbornly  insisted  in  going  on  with  her  operatic  and 
concert  performances  at  a  festival  in  Manchester,  England, 
with  fatal  results. 

Without  being  a  beauty,  Malibran  fascinated  spectators 
by  her  appearance;  she  knew  particularly  well  how  to 
improve  her  looks  by  skilful  hair-dressing.  She  had  a  fine 
form,  and  her  devotion  to  gymnastics  and  sport  gave  her 
the  health  which  is  half  the  battle  in  a  singer's  life.  Like 
Schroder-Devrient,  she  was  a  pioneer  in  the  art  of  dressing 
an  operatic  part  as  it  should  be.  "She  was  thoroughly 
realistic,"  wrote  Moscheles,  "and  in  her  dress  and  move- 
ments despised  everything  conventional.  Thus,  in  the 
sleep-walking  scene  [Sonnambula],  unlike  other  great  rep- 
resentatives of  the  part,  whose  muslin  neglige  would  have 
suited  any  lady,  she  adopted  the  hona-jide  nightcap  of  the 
peasant  girl  and  the  loose  garment  of  a  sleeper;  her  tricot 
stockings  were  so  transparent  ar  to  veil  her  feet  but  im- 
perfectly." 

Like  her  sister,  she  had  a  thorough  knowledge  of  music, 
apart  from  the  art  of  singing,  and  she  also  composed. 
A  collection  of  her  songs  appeared  in  Paris  with  the  title; 
Dernieres  Pensees  Musicales  de  Maria-Felicita  Garcia  de 


90  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

Beriot.  This  was  her  name  in  the  last  year  of  her  life, 
when  she  married  the  eminent  Belgian  violinist  Charles 
de  B6riot.  The  name  Malibran,  by  which  she  became 
famous,  was  that  of  a  French  merchant  in  New  York 
whom  she  married  by  command  of  her  father,  who  believed 
him  to  be  very  wealthy.  She  remained  with  him  only  a 
short  time,  and  subsequently  got  a  divorce;  but  his  name 
she  made  immortal — and  it  took  her  only  eleven  years  to 
do  it.  It  was  in  1825,  in  London,  that  she  made  her 
operatic  d^but,  as  Rosina,  in  the  Barber  of  Seville.  Her 
father  had  trained  particularly  the  middle  tones  of  her 
voice,  which  developed  into  an  alto  of  extraordinary  com- 
pass. She  had  the  powers  of  a  dramatic  soprano  com- 
bined with  the  flexibility  and  brilliancy  of  the  colorature 
specialists. 

Her  ambitions  were  not  lofty;  her  idols  were,  like  Patti, 
money  and  applause,  and  she  got  both  in  rich  abundance. 
It  is  commonly  supposed  that  high  salaries  are  a  product 
of  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House  in  New  York.  But  we 
have  seen  already  that  Jenny  Lind  earned  more  under 
Barnum's  management  than  any  of  the  singers  engaged 
by  Grau  or  Conried  ever  obtained  for  a  season's  work. 
Malibran,  also,  was  very  well  paid,  her  terms,  in  her  best 
years,  having  been  about  2,500  francs  a  performance, 
which,  considering  the  difference  in  the  value  of  money  in 
her  day,  hardly  falls  short  of  what  singers  of  her  rank  now 
get  in  New  York.  Those  emoluments  she  received  even 
in  Italy,  the  Italians  being  wildly  enthusiastic  over  this 
Spanish  artist.  At  Milan,  in  the  seasons  1835-7,  she  got 
420,000  francs  for  180  appearances,  besides  payment  of 
all  personal  expenses. 


VI 

THE  NATIONALITY  OF  SINGERS 

In  England  and  America  the  opinion  has  long  prevailed 
that  nearly  all  the  great  prima  donnas  have  come  from 
Italy,  and  that  students  of  other  countries  labor  under 
a  great  disadvantage.  They  need  not  worry.  No  doubt 
the  Italian  language  has  a  mellifluous  quality  which 
makes  it  particularly  easy  to  sing  in,  and  perhaps  the 
Italian  vocal  cords  are  exceptionally  pliable;  but  the 
history  of  music  shows  that  the  number  of  famous  singers 
produced  by  Italy  is  not  greater  than  that  of  some  other 
countries;  and  what  is  more,  the  famous  Italian  vocalists, 
Catalani,  Alboni,  Pasta,  Grisi,  etc.,  are  for  the  most  part 
a  mere  memory  to  even  the  older  ones  of  the  present  gen- 
eration; and  if  we  look  at  the  names  of  prima  donnas  most 
familiar  to-day  we  find  that  most  of  them  are  Polish, 
Austrian,  German,  French,  English,  and  American.  The 
American  singer,  indeed,  seems  destined  to  take  the  place 
formerly  held  by  the  Italian. 

When  the  late  Francis  Hueffer,  critic  of  the  London 
Times,  issued  his  Halj  a  Century  oj  Music  in  England 
(1889),  he  said:  "As  to  the  Italian  school  of  singing,  the 
bel  canto,  it  is  practically  a  lost  art.  Even  on  so  important 
an  occasion  as  the  last  performance  of  Verdi's  Otello,  at 
La  Scala,  in  Milan,  Italy  was  unable  to  furnish  a  cast  of 
native  singers;  and  in  other  countries  the  so-called  Italian 
stage  is  invaded  by  a  motley  assembly  from  all  quarters  of 
the  world,  knowing  little  or  nothing  of  Italian  traditions, 

91 


92 


SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 


and  pronouncing  the  language  of  Dante  and  Petrarca  with 
multifarious  accents,  among  which  the  lingua  Toscana  in 
bocca  Americana  prevails." 

Some  years  ago  the  eminent  English  composer,  Cowen, 
withdrew  his  opera  Signa  from  the  stage  at  Genoa  because 
he  found  it  could  not  be  properly  interpreted.  In  his 
judgment  "singing  has  so  greatly  deteriorated  in  Italy  that, 
in  the  'land  of  song,'  it  soon  bids  fair  to  be  a  lost  art. 
Whether  it  is  true  that  the  old  race  of  Italian  teachers  is 
extinct,  or  that  the  $2.50  a  lesson  of  the  fair  Americans 
has  demoralized  them,  or  that  the  pernicious  tremolo  is 
actually  cultivated  by  Italian  masters  as  a  vocal  grace,  it 
is  certain  that  we  now  get  our  best  vocal  recruits  from  the 
United  States,  France,  Poland,  or  almost  anywhere  else 
than  Italy.  ...  In  the  supply  of  new  oratorio  and  other 
concert  singers,"  he  adds,  "Great  Britain  and  America 
have  long  enjoyed  something  very  like  a  monopoly" — a 
fact  worth  remembering. 

Except  among  the  Italians  in  New  York,  who  have  no 
use  for  any  but  Italian  vocalists,  there  is  no  prejudice 
against  singers  anywhere  on  account  of  their  nationality. 
In  Italy  itself  it  does  not  usually  exist;  nor  is  it  to  be  found 
in  Paris  (where  the  Americans,  Van  Zandt,  Sibyl  Sander- 
son, Emma  Eames,  Mary  Garden,  and  Geraldine  Farrar 
have  been  acclaimed  enthusiastically) ;  nor  in  the  cities  of 
Germany.  In  a  letter  to  the  Musical  Leader  and  Concert- 
Goer,  dated  May  25,  1908,  Caroline  V.  Kerr  relates  that  in 
1906  she  could  locate  twenty-five  Americans  singing  in 
German  cities,  and  she  then  gives  a  list  showing  that  in  two 
years  that  number  had  doubled — "eloquent  proof  of  the 
recognition  which  the  American  voice  finds  in  Europe.  If 
to  this  list  could  be  added  the  Americans  singing  at  present 
in  France  and  Italy,  it  would  assume  far  greater  propor- 
tions." 

The  gift  of  song  is  fortunately  international,  as  the  fol- 


THE  NATIONALITY  OF  SINGERS 


93 


lowing  tolerably  complete  list  of  the  world's  most  famous 
vocalists  shows: 

Italians 


Agujari 

Faustina 

Patti 

Alboni 

Ferri 

Persiani 

Bond 

Gabrielli 

Piccolomini 

Bosio 

Galassi 

Roncone 

Brignoli 

Grisi  (two) 

Rubini 

Caffarelli 

Lablache 

Scalchi 

Campanari 

Marchesi 

Senesino 

Campanini 

Mario 

Tamagno 

Caruso 

Mingotti 

Tamberlick 

Catalan! 

Nicolini 

Tamburini 

Cuzzoni 

Pasta 

Tetrazzini 

Farinelli 

Germans 

Alvary 

Knote 

Schroder-Devrient 

Betz 

Lehmann 

Schroder-Hanfstangl 

Brandt 

Malten 

Sontag 

Burrian 

Mara 

Stagemann 

Cruvelli 

Milder-Hauptmann 

Stockhausen 

Dippel 

Morena 

Sucher 

Fischer,  Emil 

Niemann 

Tichatschek 

Fischer,  Ludwig 

Reicher- Kindermann 

Trebelli 

Formes,  Carl 

Reichmann 

Vogl 

Formes,  Theodor 

Scaria 

Wachtel 

Gadski 

Scheidemantel 

Wagner  (Johanna) 

Gotze 

Schelper 

Wiegand 

Kindermann 

Schnorr  von  Carolsfeld  Wild  (Franz) 

AUSTRIANS 

Di  Murska  (Croatian)  Mallinger 

Schumann-Heink 

Joachim,  Amalie 

Materna 

Staudigl 

Krause,  Gabrielle 

Mingotti 

Temina  (Croatian) 

Krauss-Seidl 

Mitterwurzer 

Wilt 

94 

SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

French 

Achard 

Amould 

Artdt,  Desir^e 

Audran 

Bataille 

Brdval 

Calvd 

Capoul 

Carvalho,  Caroline 

Dalmores 

Delmas 

Dufranne 

Duprez 

Faure 

Galli-Marid 

Gilibert 

Lagrange 

Lassalle 

Levasseur 

Spanish 

Maurel 

Nourrit 

Planfon 

Pouchard 

Renaud 

Roger 

Roze,  Marie 

Saleza 

Samel 

Colbran 
Del  Puente 
Garcia 

Malibran 
Monbelli 

Bohemians 

Nau 
Viardot 

Destinn 
Gura 

Krolop 

Poles 

Pischek 

Litvinne 
Reszke,  Jeande 

Reszke,  Edouard  de 

Portuguese 
Todi 

Hungarians 

Sembrich 

Gerster 

Tietjens 

Scandinavians 

Ungher-Sabatier 

Amoldson 
Fremstad 

Lind 
Nilsson 

Nissen-Salomon 

THE  NATIONALITY  OF  SINGERS 


95 


British,  Irish,  and  Colonial 


Albani 

Billington 

Braham 

Brema 

Butt,  Clara 

Crossley 

Davies,  Ben 
Davies,  Ffrangcon 
Garden  (Scotch) 
Kirkby-Lunn 
Lloyd 

Americans 

Melba 

Philipps,  Adelaide 

Reeves 

Rosa,  Parepa  (Scotch) 

Santley 

Bispham 
Blass 

Hauck 
Homer 

Rider-Kelsey 
Sanderson 

Carey 
De  Lussan 

Kellogg 
Martin 

Sterling 
Van  Zandt 

Eames 

Nevada 

Walker 

Farrar 

Nordica 

vn 

GERMAN  AND  AUSTRIAN  SINGERS 
Mara  and  Sontag 

Frederick  the  Great,  King  of  Prussia,  was  so  unpa- 
triotic as  to  say  that  he  would  as  soon  hear  the  neighing  of 
a  horse  as  the  singing  of  a  German  prima  donna.  But  he 
changed  his  mind  when  he  heard  Gertrud  Elizabeth 
Mara  (whose  maiden  name  was  Schmeling  and  who  was 
bom  at  Kassel  in  1749).  Her  father,  hearing  that  the 
King  had  opened  a  musical  institution  in  Berlin,  took  her 
there  and  tried  to  get  an  engagement  for  her.  The  King 
sent  his  favorite  singer,  Morelli,  to  hear  her,  and  when  the 
Italian's  report  was:  "She  sings  like  a  German,"  he  re- 
fused to  engage  her.  Subsequently,  however,  she  had  an 
opportunity  to  sing  for  Frederick,  and  he  was  so  delighted 
that  thenceforth  she  had  to  go  to  Potsdam  every  day  to 
entertain  him;  and  he  took  such  a  great  interest  in  her 
that  he  tried  hard  to  prevent  her  from  marrying  the  vio- 
loncellist Mara,  whose  name  she  has  immortalized— a 
worthless,  brutal  fellow  who  deserved  this  distinction  as 
little  as  "Malibran's"  husband  did. 

For  readers  of  this  book  the  most  important  thing  to 
know  about  Mara  is  that  her  example  shows  that  with 
pluck  and  perseverance  we  may  win  success  despite  seri- 
ous natural  disadvantages.  As  a  child  she  fell  and  was 
injured  so  seriously  that  she  remained  somewhat  disabled 
and  an  invalid  all  her  life. 

96 


MARA  AND  SONTAG  97 

She  had  some  lessons  in  London,  but  for  the  most  part 
she  was  self-taught.  She  conquered  the  Parisians  at  a 
time  when  there  was  a  furore  over  the  Portuguese  prima 
donna,  Luiza  Rosa  de  Aguiar  Todi.  The  public  split  into 
two  camps — the  Todists  and  the  Maratists.  Mara  earned 
laurels  in  Italy,  too,  being  engaged  at  Venice  and  Turin 
in  1788-91. 

There  is  an  amusing  anecdote  of  an  Italian  who,  like 
Frederick  the  Great,  was  convinced  that  no  German 
could  sing.  A  friend  induced  him  to  go  to  the  opera 
when  a  certain  famous  German  prima  donna  sang.  After 
hearing  her  first  air,  the  Italian  got  up  to  go.  The  friend 
urged  him  to  stay,  assuring  him  that  he  would  soon  be 
converted.  *'I  know  it,"  the  Italian  replied,  ''and  that's 
why  I  go." 

This  prima  donna  was  Henriette  Sontag.  She  was  born 
at  Coblenz  in  1806,  but  though  a  pure  German,  she  seemed 
to  have  been  born  with  an  Italian  throat,  for  her  singing 
of  Italian  music  was  more  satisfactory  than  that  of  Ger- 
man music,  excepting  that  of  Mozart,  in  which  she  was 
considered  unrivalled.  She  herself  said  that  "a  Donna 
Anna  over  her  father's  corpse,  a  Pamina  who  cannot  in 
the  air  'Ach  ich  fuhVs '  move  the  public  to  tears,  has  no 
idea  of  Mozart."  Mendelssohn  had  a  high  opinion  of 
her;  Weber,  after  hearing  her  in  the  Donna  del  Lago, 
offered  her  the  title  r61e  in  his  best  opera,  Euryanthe;  and 
Beethoven  was  interested  in  her;  it  was  she  who  sang  the 
soprano  parts  in  his  Mass  in  D  and  his  Ninth  Symphony , 
when  those  works  were  produced  in  1824. 

Nevertheless,  it  was  in  Italian  music  of  the  kind  which 
required  brilliancy  of  execution  rather  than  expression 
that  she  was  at  her  best.  To  cite  the  testimony  of  contem- 
poraries: "The  clearness  of  her  notes,  the  precision  of  her 
intonation,  the  fertility  of  her  invention,  and  the  facility  of 
her  execution  were  displayed  in  brilliant  flights  and  lavish 


98  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

fioriture;  her  rare  flexibility  being  a  natural  gift,  cultivated 
by  taste  and  natural  study.  .  .  .  The  ease  with  which 
she  sang  was  perfectly  captivating.  .  .  .  She  appeared 
to  sing  with  the  volubility  of  a  bird,  and  to  experience 
the  pleasure  she  imparted."  And  again:  '*  All  passages  are 
alike  to  her,  but  she  has  appropriated  some  that  were 
hitherto  believed  to  belong  to  instruments — to  the  piano- 
forte and  the  violin,  for  instance." 

Such  a  singer  could  not  fail  to  arouse  the  enthusiasm  of 
the  Italians — who  called  her  ''the  nightingale  of  the 
North" — as  well  as  that  of  the  Germans,  the  French,  the 
Americans.  In  Paris,  her  singing  of  Rode's  air  and  varia- 
tions created  a  sensation  and  made  "la  petite  AUemande" 
a  favorite  at  once.  In  Germany  the  Sontag  frenzy  assumed 
such  proportions  that  some  musicians  and  authors  felt 
called  upon  to  rise  in  protest.  Among  them  were  Rellstab, 
the  critic,  Borne,  the  poet,  and  Hans  von  Bulow,  the  pian- 
ist. The  first  two  recanted;  Borne,  in  doing  so,  said: 
"  She  has  been  called  the  indescribable,  the  heavenly,  the 
incomparable,  the  divine,  the  universally  admired,  the 
matchless,  the  adorable,  the  adored,  the  delicate  pearl,  the 
dear  Henriette,  sweetest  of  all  maidens,  darling  little  girl, 
the  heroine  of  song,  divine  child,  the  champion  of  melody, 
the  pride  of  Germany,  the  pearl  of  opera."  And  the  poet 
adds:  "I  approve  of  all  these  epithets  with  all  my  heart." 

Who  would  not  be  a  prima  donna!  To  be  sure,  Sontag 
was  not  only  a  sweet  and  brilliant  singer,  but  a  beauty,  too, 
of  the  blonde  type,  with  large  eyes,  delicate  features,  and 
a  slender  figure.  Is  it  a  wonder  that  everywhere,  in  Lon- 
don, Paris,  Berlin,  she  was  the  courted  of  courtiers,  all 
eager  to  marry  her?  But  she  remained  true  to  the  Sar- 
dinian Ambassador,  Count  Rossi,  to  whom  she  was  en- 
gaged, till  the  King  of  Prussia  ennobled  her  (Fraulein  von 
Klarenstein) ,  whereupon  she  married  the  Count  and  retired 
from  the  stage,  to  the  great  sorrow  of  her  many  admirers. 


SCHRODER-DEVRIENT,  WAGNER'S  IDOL    99 

According  to  Sutherland  Edwards,  "in  the  infant  days 
of  opera,  marriage  with  a  first-class  nobleman  was,  in 
England  at  least,  the  ordinary  termination  of  a  prima 
donna's  career." 

In  Germany  and  France,  on  the  other  hand,  this  ter- 
mination of  Sontag's  artistic  career  created  surprise;  but 
this  surprise  turned  to  joy  when,  eighteen  years  later,  she 
returned  to  the  stage,  her  husband  having  become  impov- 
erished through  the  ruin  of  Sardinia  by  war.  During  this 
long  interval  she  had  not  neglected  her  voice  and  it  was 
found  to  be  practically  unimpaired.  Once  more  she  won 
triumphs,  not  only  in  Europe,  but  in  the  United  States  and 
in  Mexico,  where  she  died  of  cholera  in  1854. 

The  romance  abounding  in  her  life  suggested  to  a  Ger- 
man author  named  Gundling  the  writing  of  a  two-volume 
novel  bearing  her  name. 

One  more  incident  in  her  career  calls  for  mention — her 
rivalry  with  Malibran.  For  a  time  this  aroused  so  much 
ill-feeling  that  the  two  singers  refused  to  meet  each  other 
socially;  but  the  public  benefited  by  it,  for  when  both 
sang  in  the  same  city  each  one  was  sure  to  do  her  very 
best.  Then  it  occurred  to  some  lovers  of  opera  that  it 
would  be  better  still  if  a  reconciliation  could  be  effected 
and  the  two  great  singers  persuaded  to  appear  together. 
The  plan  succeeded,  and  Londoners  were  so  lucky  as  to 
hear  the  two  in  several  operas,  among  them  Mozart's  Don 
Giovanni  and  Figaro,  and  Rossini's  Semiramide. 

Schroder- Devrient,  Wagner's  Idol 

In  1804,  six  years  later  than  Pasta,  there  was  born  in 
Hamburg  an  artist  who  first  made  the  Germans  feel  the 
thrills  of  great  dramatic  singing.  Her  name  was  Schroder- 
Devrient. 

Richard  Wagner's  sister,  Cacilie  Avenarius,  was  fond 


lOo  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

of  relating  an  incident  of  her  girlhood  that  made  an  in- 
delible impression  on  her.  One  day  their  parents  invited 
a  number  of  friends  to  welcome  and  hear  a  noted  prima 
donna  who  was  making  some  appearances  in  Leipsic. 
She  came,  and  she  sang  wonderfully.  "In  the  deep  em- 
brasure of  a  window  there  stood,  silent  and  motionless, 
Richard  Wagner,  on  whom  these  tones  made  a.  magic  im- 
pression. It  was  as  if  a  bandage  had  fallen  from  his  eyes. 
.  .  .  For  the  first  time  he  realized  the  nature  and  the  effect 
of  dramatic  expression.  He  had  awakened  from  an  un- 
conscious dream.  His  eyes  shone,  and  his  narrow,  delicate 
face  was  deathly  pale  from  emotion." 

In  his  literary  and  critical  essays  Wagner  devotes  many 
pages  to  the  art  and  the  personality  of  this  woman,  who 
had  given  him  a  new  ideal,  a  new  kind  of  emotion.  To 
him  Wilhelmine  Schroder-Devrient  was  the  greatest  vocal 
interpreter  of  her  time,  the  prophetess  proclaiming  the 
advent  of  a  new  vocal  art.  **  The  remotest  contact  with  this 
extraordinary  woman,"  he  wrote  in  his  Communication  to 
My  Friends  (185 1),  "electrified  me.  For  a  long  time  I 
heard  and  felt  her  presence  when  the  impulse  to  compose 
came  over  me,  and  it  is  so  to  the  present  day.  .  .  .  She  set 
an  example  which  I  alone  of  the  dramatists  used  as  a 
guide.  But  not  only  this  example,  but  all  my  knowl- 
edge of  the  nature  of  mimic  representation,  I  owe  to  this 
woman." 

Even  the  compliment  paid  by  Mendelssohn  to  Jenny 
Lind,  "She  is  the  greatest  artist  I  know,"  pales  in  com- 
parison with  this  tribute  to  Schroder-Devrient  by  the 
creator  of  a  new  phase  of  art.  Nor  was  Wagner  the  only 
master  who  grew  eloquent  in  his  enthusiasm  for  this  Ger- 
man singer.  Beethoven  was  so  deeply  impressed  by  her 
impersonation  of  the  heroine  of  his  Fidelio  that  he  prom- 
ised to  write  an  opera  for  her.  Goethe  did  not  care  for 
Schubert's  Erlking  as  presented  to  him  at  first;  but  when 


SCHRODER-DEVRIENT,, WAGNER'S  IDOL  loi 

he  heard  this  woman  sing  it,  he  kissed  her  on  the  cheek 
and  exclaimed:  ''Thank  you  a  thousand  times  for  this 
grand  artistic  achievement.  I  heard  this  song  once  before, 
when  I  did  not  hke  it  at  all;  but  when  sung  in  your  way,  it 
becomes  a  true  picture." 

From  the  singing-master's  point  of  view  Schroder- 
Devrient  was  far  from  being  a  model,  and  no  one  knew 
that  better  than  she  herself  or  Wagner.  Hagemann  points 
out  that  her  trill  was  labored  and  too  slow;  that  her 
fioriture  lacked  ease  and  fluency;  that  her  tones  had  in- 
sufficient brilliancy  and  sometimes  were  guttural;  and 
that  in  her  later  years  her  high  tones  were  shrill.  She  had 
started  her  career  as  an  actress,  and  when  she  turned  seri- 
ously to  singing  it  was  already  too  late  to  overcome  some 
of  the  natural  disadvantages  under  which  she  labored, 
though  she  worked  hard  both  with  a  teacher  and  by  her- 
self. A  Jean  de  Reszke,  a  Lilli  Lehmann,  or  a  Garcia 
might  have  helped  her;  but  none  such  was  at  hand,  and 
so  she  never  became  a  mistress  of  hel  canto.  We  are  told 
that  she  shirked  ''the  drudgery  of  scale  singing,"  and  this 
neglect  avenged  itself  on  her  throughout  her  career. 

Her  middle  register  had  great  beauty,  especially  in 
mezza  voce.  The  critics  praised  also  her  distinct  enuncia- 
tion; but  what  she  excelled  in  particularly  was  the  art 
of  emotional  coloring  of  her  tones;  in  this  art  of  altering 
tones,  not  only  quantitatively  but  also  qualitatively,  she  is 
said  to  have  been  unequalled — a  model  for  all  time. 

Her  historic  significance,  however,  lies  in  this,  that  she 
was  the  first  artist  who  fully  revealed  the  fact  that  in  a 
dramatic  opera  there  may  be  situations  where  characteristic 
singing  is  of  more  importance  than  beautiful  singing.  The 
difference  between  the  two  is  illustrated  by  two  sentences 
from  Mozart's  writings:  "A  man  who  is  in  such  a  v.iolent 
rage  oversteps  all  order,  all  moderation;  he  forgets  himself, 
and  the  music  must  do  the  same."     "Music,  even  in  the 


I02  '•  •   syCGES&lN  MUSIC 

most  awful  situations,  must  not  offend  the  ear,  but  always 
please."  These  two  maxims  are  really  contradictory. 
Mozart  himself  chose  the  second,  while  Weber,  Wagner^ 
and  the  later  opera  composers,  down  to  Puccini  and 
Richard  Strauss,  preferred  to  follow  the  first;  consequendy 
music  has  ceased  to  be  a  mere  concord  of  sweet  sounds;  it 
has  become  the  most  eloquent  of  all  languages  for  the  ex- 
pression of  emotions — of  evil,  violent  emotions  as  well  as 
those  of  joy  and  contentment. 

No  one  would  ever  have  contradicted  Hagemann's  asser- 
tion that  "  in  a  drama  an  ugly  tone  may  be  very  beautiful 
and  a  beautiful  tone  very  ugly."  But  that  the  same  may 
be  true  in  a  music-drama,  it  remained  for  Schroder- 
Devrient  —  and  Wagner  —  to  show.  The  word  Beauty, 
through  them,  acquired  a  wider  meaning — the  meaning 
of  Truth  and  Realism. 

To  take  a  special  case.  Would  it  not  be  ridiculous  to 
have  the  Nibelung  dwarfs,  Alberich  and  Mime,  in  the 
second  act  of  Siegfried,  when  they  quarrel  over  the  Ring 
and  the  Magic  Helmet  at  the  dragon's  cave,  sing  "beauti- 
fully," in  the  old  sense  of  the  word — beautifully  d,  la  Ade- 
lina  Patti  ?  Think  that  question  over,  and  you  will  under- 
stand the  difference  between  dramatic  or  emotional  singing 
and  merely  beautiful  singing — understand  why  Wagner 
was  thrilled  by  the  singing  of  Schroder-Devrient;  while 
Patti,  though  far  her  superior  from  the  singing-master's 
point  of  view,  could  at  most  have  delighted  him.  Now, 
delight  is  a  very  agreeable  feeling,  too;  but  thrills — it  is  for 
those  we  attend  the  Wagner  operas;  and  the  singer  who 
cannot  in  these  rdles  stir  us  with  intense  emotion  has  missed 
her  vocation. 

The  practical  outcome  of  these  considerations  is  of  the 
utmost  importance.  Is  the  reader  a  girl  who  studies  for 
the  stage,  but  whose  voice  lacks  the  sensuous  charm  and 
the  flexibility  that  would  enable  her  to  follow  in  the  foot- 


SCHRODER-DEVRIENT,  WAGNER'S  IDOL  103 

steps  of  Patti  ?  Then,  if  she  has  brains  and  ambition,  and 
dramatic  instincts,  she  may  nevertheless  aspire  to  reach  an 
even  higher  level  in  operatic  art — the  level  of  Schroder- 
Devrient. 

An  instructive  anecdote  is  related  concerning  her  first 
appearance  in  what  became  one  of  her  most  thrilling  roles 
— as  Fidelio  in  Beethoven's  opera.  She  had  made  a  most 
thorough  study  of  the  music,  and  the  splendid  story  on 
which  it  is  based — the  story  of  the  wife  whp  disguises  her- 
self as  a  man  to  find  her  husband,  and  discovers  him  at  last 
starving  in  a  dungeon  and  about  to  be  assassinated — 
aroused  all  her  dramatic  instincts  to  the  highest  degree  of 
excitement.  Strong  though  she  was,  this  excitement 
proved  such  a  drain  on  her  powers  that  when  she  reached 
the  prison  scene  she  felt  as  if  collapse  was  imminent.  "  A 
terrific  fright  came  over  her;  and  presently  she  practically 
lost  complete  control  of  herself.  But  now  a  wonder  hap- 
pened. The  public  looked  on  this  terror  and  its  conse- 
quences in  her  actions — which  happened  to  suit  the  situa- 
tion— as  an  artistic  achievement.  The  words,  uttered  in 
great  agony:  'First  kill  his  wife';  the  famous  unmusical 
outcry;  and,  after  Florestan's  exclamation:  'My  wife,  how 
you  have  suffered  for  me!'  her  answer:  'Nothing,  noth- 
ing, nothing,'  uttered  with  smiles  and  tears — all  this  was 
taken  for  consummate  art,  and  a  storm  of  applause  re- 
warded her." 

Glumer  relates  *  that  Beethoven  himself  was  present  at 
this  performance  and  that  when  it  was  over  he  thanked 
her  and  promised  to  write  an  opera  for  her.  He  was  prac- 
tically deaf  then,  but  merely  to  see  her  in  this  role  must 
have  been  a  rare  treat.  Her  impersonation  of  Beethoven's 
heroine  was  so  powerful  that  when,  ten  years  later  (1832), 
it  was  heard  in  London,  Fidelio  proved  "the  solitary  suc- 
cess of  a  disastrous  enterprise,"  and  through  it  the  Italians 

*  Erinnerungen  an  Wilhelmine  Schroder-Devrient. 


I04  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

"  were  beaten  out  of  the  field  by  the  Germans,"  in  the  words 
of  the  eminent  critic  Chorley,  who  further  wrote:  **The  in- 
tense musical  vigor  of  Beethoven's  opera  was  felt  to  be  a 
startling  variety,  wrought  out  as  it  was  in  its  principal  part, 
by  a  vocalist  of  a  class  entirely  new  to  England.  This  was 
Mme.  Schroder-Devrient."  And  he  proceeds  to  give  this 
graphic  sketch  of  her  personality: 

"  She  was  a  pale  woman;  her  face,  a  thoroughly  German 
one,  though  plain,  was  pleasing,  from  the  intensity  of  ex- 
pression which  her  large  features  and  deep,  tender  eyes  con- 
veyed. She  had  profuse,  fair  hair,  the  value  of  which  she 
thoroughly  understood,  delighting,  in  moments  of  great 
emotion,  to  fling  it  loose  with  the  vehemence  of  a  Maenad. 
Her  figure  was  superb,  though  full,  and  she  rejoiced  in  its 
display.  Her  voice  was  a  strong  soprano,  not  comparable 
in  qualityto  some  other  German  voices  of  its  class,  .  .  .  but 
with  an  inherent  expressiveness  of  tone  which  made  it 
more  attractive  on  the  stage  than  many  a  more  faultless 
organ." 

Paris,  like  London,  was  conquered  by  her  emotional  art. 
Looking  on  herself  as  a  high-priestess  of  music — like  Jenny 
Lind,  and  unlike  Patti — she  wrote  concerning  her  Parisian 
venture:  "I  had  to  think  not  only  of  my  own  reputation, 
but  to  establish  German  music.  My  failure  would  have 
been  injurious  to  the  music  of  Beethoven,  Mozart,  and 
Weber."  And  the  composers  did  not  fail  to  realize  what 
she  was  doing  for  them. 

Of  Beethoven  and  Wagner  we  have  already  spoken. 
Weber,  too,  was  enthusiastic,  and  so  was  Schumann,  who 
dedicated  to  her  his  splendid  cycle,  Dichterliebe.  These 
songs,  as  well  as  those  of  Schubert,  she  sang  with  thrilling 
dramatic  effect.  Mendelssohn,  in  one  of  his  letters,  de- 
scribes the  furore  created  by  her  singing  of  Adelaide  in 
Leipsic,  in  1841;  and  in  London  he  once  accompanied 
her  in  this  song. 


LILLI  LEHMANN,  WAGNER'S  IDEAL    105 

If  Schroder-Devrient  made  the  mistake  of  "  shirking  the 
drudgery  of  scale  singing"  at  a  critical  period  in  her  career, 
she  endeavored  to  atone  for  this  subsequently  by  incessant 
labor  in  other  directions.  And  she  was  her  own  severest 
critic.  '^Art,"  she  once  said  to  a  friend,  "is  an  eternal 
quest,  and  an  artist  is  lost  as  soon  as  she  fancies  she  has 
reached  her  goal.  Often  when  the  public  showered  plau- 
dits and  flowers  on  me,  I  went  ashamed  to  my  room  and 
asked  myself:  'What  have  you  perpetrated  again?'  and 
then  I  had  no  peace — day  and  night  I  thought  the  matter 
over  until  I  found  the  better  way." 

She  was  by  no  means  always  in  a  serious  mood,  even  on 
the  stage,  when  she  should  have  been.  Once,  when  she 
was  playing  Romeo  (in  Bellini's  opera),  she  was  so  annoyed 
by  the  apathy  of  the  Juliet  during  the  caresses  of  the  last 
scene  that  she  tickled  her  feet  to  wake  her  up. 

Moscheles  records  the  following  comic  episode:  In  the 
deeply  tragic  scene  in  the  dungeon,  where  Schroder-De- 
vrient (Fidelio)  has  to  give  Haizinger  (Florestan)  a  piece 
of  bread  which  she  has  kept  three  days  for  him  hidden 
in  her  dress,  he  does  not  at  once  respond  to  the  offer, 
whereupon  she  whispers  to  him:  ''Why  don't  you  take  it? 
Do  you  want  it  buttered  ?" 

She  had  evidently  got  over  her  stage  fright! 

LiLLi  Lehmann,  Wagner's  Ideal 

Probably  some  of  the  readers  of  the  foregoing  pages  will 
say  to  themselves:  "What  a  grand  thing  it  would  be  if 
there  were  a  singer  combining  Patti's  luscious  voice  and 
flawless  execution  with  the  emotional  power  and  the 
dramatic  instinct  of  Schroder-Devrient!" 

Such  an  artist  actually  has  been  on  the  stage  for  four 
decades,  and  to  her  art  thousands  owe  some  of  the  deepest 
impressions  of  their  lives.     Her  name  is  Lilli  Lehmann. 


io6  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

She  was  born  in  1848,  and  sixty  years  later  she  was  still 
delighting  her  admirers  in  song  recitals  and  an  occasional 
Mozart,  Wagner,  br  Verdi  opera.  She  tells  us  in  a  book 
on  her  vocal  art  *  that  her  mother,  who  also  was  an  opera 
singer,  ''kept  her  voice  noble,  beautiful,  young  and  strong 
to  the  end  of  her  life — that  is,  till  her  seventy-seventh  year 
— notwithstanding  enormous  demands  upon  it  and  many 
a  blow  of  fate." 

There  is  no  affectation  about  Lilli  Lehmann.  She 
bluntly  tells  her  readers  that  "rarely  are  so  many  desirable 
and  necessary  antecedents  united  as  in  my  case."  Her 
mother  (Maria  Low)  was  active  many  years,  not  only  as  a 
dramatic  singer  but  also  as  a  harp  virtuoso,  and  her  father 
also  was  a  singer.  From  her  mother  she  received  instruc- 
tion in  singing,  after  having,  from  her  fifth  year,  listened 
daily  to  the  lessons  given  to  others.  "From  my  ninth  year 
I  played  accompaniments  on  the  piano-forte,  sang  all  the 
missing  parts,  in  French,  Italian,  German,  and  Bohemian, 
got  thoroughly  familiar  with  all  the  operas,  and  very  soon 
knew  how  to  tell  good  singing  from  bad.  Our  mother  took 
good  care,  too,  that  we  should  hear  all  the  visiting  nota- 
bilities of  that  time  in  opera  as  well  as  in  concert;  and 
there  were  many  of  them  every  year  at  the  Deutsches 
Landestheater  in  Prague." 

Lilli  Lehmann  is  a  Bavarian,  having  been  bom  at 
Wurzburg;  but  it  was  not  at  Munich,  the  capital  of  Ba- 
varia, that  she  passed  the  best  years  of  her  operatic  career, 
but  in  Berlin  and  New  York.  Her  first  appearance  was 
made  in  Bohemia,  and  the  opera  was  Mozart's  Magic 
Flute.  "I  appeared  in  one  of  the  lighter  r61es;  but  two 
weeks  later,  during  the  performance,  the  dramatic  soprano 
was  taken  ill,  and  I  then  and  there  went  on  with  her  r61e, 
trusting  to  my  memory  after  hearing  it  so  often.     My 

*  How  to  Sing.  By  Lilli  Lehmann.  Translated  from  the  German  by 
Richard  Aldrich.     New  York;  The  Macmillan  Co.     1902. 


LILLI  LEHMANN,  WAGNER'S  IDEAL    107 

mother,  who  was  in  the  audience  and  knew  I  had  never 
studied  the  part,  nearly  fainted  when  she  saw  me  come  on 
the  stage  as  Pamina."  * 

During  her  engagement  at  the  Prague  Theatre  she  ap- 
peared not  only  in  many  operas  but  also  as  an  actress  in  a 
number  of  plays.  In  those  days  there  was  not  the  same 
strict  division  of  labor  between  actors  and  singers  that 
there  is  to-day;  actors  were  expected  to  sing  and  singers 
to  act  (without  music)  whenever  called  upon  to  do  so. 
When  we  consider  how  much  Jenny  Lind,  Schroder- 
Devrient,  and  Lilli  Lehmann  benefited  in  their  operatic 
careers  by  having  been  actresses  first,  one  cannot  but  feel 
tempted  to  advise  all  students  for  the  operatic  stage  to 
follow  their  example. 

Lilli  was  eighteen  years  old  when  she  made  her  operatic 
d^but  in  Prague.  While  in  that  city  she  took  part  daily 
in  operas,  operettas,  plays,  and  farces.  Then  she  went  for 
a  year  and  a  half  to  Danzig,  where  she  sang  from  eighteen 
to  twenty  times  a  month  in  colorature  and  soubrette  parts; 
also  in  Leipsic,  and  later,  fifteen  years  in  Berlin,  chiefly  in 
colorature  parts. 

What  are  colorature  parts  ?  They  are  roles,  like  those 
usually  sung  by  Patti,  in  which  ornamental  staccato  tones, 
trills,  roulades,  and  other  vocal  embellishments  are  the 
main  feature.  And  Lilli  Lehmann,  who  subsequently 
became  the  leading  dramatic  soprano  of  her  time,  was  a 
colorature  singer  during  the  first  half  of  her  career! 

A  fact  of  the  utmost  significance !  The  proficiency  which 
she  gained  in  these  years  in  the  Italian  bel  canto  (which 
Wagner  himself  strongly  advised  all  students  to  acquire) 
aided  her  in  later  years  very  much  in  mastering  the  diffi- 
culties of  dramatic  singing  and  the  art  of  uniting  vocal 
beauty  with  expressiveness. 

*  Stars  of  the  Opera.  By  Mabel  Wagnalls.  New  York:  Funk,  Wag- 
nails   &  Co.     1907. 


io8  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

Those  who  remember  Lilli  Lehmann  chiefly  as  Isolde 
or  Briinnhilde  find  it  difficult  to  think  of  her  as  a  rival  of 
Patti  in  colorature.  But  such  she  was,  and  if  she  fell 
somewhat  short  of  that  diva  in  agility  and  spontaneity  of 
utterance,  she  surpassed  her  in  the  art  of  coloring  florid 
music  emotionally.  This  is  a  point  of  such  importance  to 
all  students  of  singing  that  we  must  dwell  on  it  a  moment. 
In  her  book,  Lilli  Lehmann  says: 

"  If  he  is  skilful  enough,  the  singer  can  impart  a  certain 
expression  of  feeling  to  even  the  most  superficial  phrases 
and  coloratura  passages.  Thus,  in  coloratura  passages  of 
Mozart's  arias  I  have  always  sought  to  gain  expressiveness 
by  crescendi,  choice  of  significant  points  for  breathing,  and 
breaking  off  of  phrases.  I  have  been  especially  successful 
with  this  in  the  Entfuhrung,  introducing  a  tone  of  lament 
into  the  first  aria,  a  heroic  dignity  into  the  second,  through 
the  coloratura  passages.  Without  exaggerating  petty  de- 
tails, the  artist  must  exploit  all  the  means  of  expression 
that  he  is  justified  in  using." 

Lilli  Lehmann,  in  other  words,  used  her  brains  in  sing- 
ing, as  well  as  her  throat.  How  admirably  she  succeeded 
in  this  rare  art  of  taking  the  chill  out  of  florid  music  is 
attested  by  Mr.  Apthorp  in  an  illuminating  little  book,* 
in  which  he  says : 

It  is  not  long  ago  that  I  got  a  letter  from  an  old-time 
opera-goer  who  could  still  remember  the  Rossini  operas 
in  their  heyday,  and  the  great  singers  who  sang  in  them. 
My  correspondent  called  my  attention,  among  other  things, 
to  the  fact  that  Semiramide  was  written,  and  generally 
rated,  as  a  "grand  dramatic  part";  it  was  not  meant  for  a 
light,  florid  soprano  sjogato,  for  one  of  the  "canary  birds" 
of  the  lyric  stage,  but  for  a  heavy  dramatic  soprano — a 
singer  like  Tietjens  or  Lilli  Lehmann,  for  instance.    All 

*  By  the  Way.  About  Musicians.  By  William  Foster  Apthorp.  Bos- 
ton: Copeland  &  Day.     1898.     Vol.  II,  pp.  20-22. 


LILLI  LEHMANN,   WAGNER'S  IDEAL    109 

those  florid  roulades,  which  we  now  regard  as  the  most 
unmitigated  sort  of  vocal  fireworks,  fit  only  for  the  rapid 
warbling  of  a  light,  agile  voice,  were  originally  sung  more 
slowly,  with  full  vibrato  and  the  most  grandiose  dramatic 
expression. 

It  takes  something  of  a  stretch  of  the  imagination  [Mr. 
Apthorp  continues]  for  us  to  conceive  nowadays  of  such 
things  being  sung  dramatically  and  in  the  grand  style; 
but  that  they  were  so  sung  is  indubitable.  The  old  ''  dra- 
matic" coloratura,  sung  with  the  full  voice  and  at  a  moder- 
ate rate  of  speed,  is  now  pretty  much  a  thing  of  the  past; 
Semiramide's  roulades  are  sung  nowadays  by  light  voices, 
in  mezza  voce,  and  at  a  breakneck  pace;  the  old  grand  style 
and  dramatic  stress  have  passed  away  from  music  of  this 
sort  and  made  place  for  a  sheer  display  of  vocal  agility. 

I  remember  when  Lilli  Lehmann  astonished  all  Paris — 
in  the  winter  of  1 890-1 — with  her  singing  of  Constanze's 
air  in  Mozart's  Seraglio;  one  old  musician  exclaimed  in 
delight:  "This  is  the  first  time  in  many  years  that  I  have 
heard  the  old,  slow  coloratura  sung  with  the  full  power  of 
the  voice,  just  as  the  great  singers  of  old  used  to  sing!" 
Some  of  us  remember  the  same  great  artist's  singing  of 
Bella  a  me  ritorna,  in  Bellini's  Norma,  at  the  Boston 
Theatre.  This  was  great  dramatic  singing,  full  of  emotional 
stress  and  the  carefullest  regard  for  expressive  details;  it 
was  the  old  grand  style,  whereas  most  other  singers  had 
shown  us  this  music  only  as  the  lightest  sort  of  agile 
warbling. 

Thus  did  the  German  Lilli  Lehmann  serve  as  a  model 
to  modem  Italian  singers  in  the  lost  art  of  singing  florid 
music  dramatically!  And  to  the  German  singers  of  her 
day  she  served  as  a  model  in  the  new  art  of  singing  dra- 
matic music  with  all  the  refinements  of  the  Italian  bel 
canto  I    A  wondrous  artist,  in  truth ! 

Richard  Wagner,  as  we  have  seen,  used  to  be  so  an- 
noyed at  being  asked  regarding  his  idol,  Schroder-Devri- 


no  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

ent,  whether  *'her  voice"  was  so  very  remarkable,  that  he 
finally  felt  like  exclaiming  angrily  that  she  had  no  "voice" 
at  all,  but  that  she  could  move  the  hearer  by  her  singing  as 
no  one  else  could.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  needless  to  say, 
he  would  have  been  only  too  glad  if  he  could  have  said 
also:  *'Yes,  she  has  a  luscious  voice — as  velvety  as  Pat- 
ti's."  Unfortunately,  he  did  not  live  to  hear  Lilli  Lehmann 
in  the  height  of  her  career  as  Isolde  and  Briinnhilde;  but  he 
was  enchanted  with  her  singing  when  he  selected  the 
artists  for  the  first  Bayreuth  festival  in  1876,  and  promptly 
engaged  her  as  the  forest  bird  and  the  first  Rhinemaiden; 
for  the  heavier  rdles  she  was  too  young  at  that  time,  and 
her  voice  too  light. 

It  was  really  not  till  she  broke  her  contract  in  Berlin — 
where  she  could  not  have  the  parts  she  most  wanted  to 
sing — and  went  to  New  York  that  her  superlative  gifts  as 
an  interpreter  of  Wagner's  music  were  fully  developed. 
Eight  years — the  best  eight  of  her  career — were  spent  in 
the  American  metropolis,  and  as  the  casts  included  other 
first-class  artists,  and  the  orchestra  was  usually  imder  the 
greatest  of  all  Wagner  conductors,  Anton  Seidl,  the  result 
was  eight  seasons  which  will  ever  be  remembered  as  the 
golden  age  of  German  opera  in  New  York.  Half  a  dozen 
great  Isoldes  have  been  heard  in  that  city,  but  no  other 
succeeded  quite  so  well  as  she  in  depicting,  in  action  and 
song,  all  the  diverse  emotions  of  love,  indignation,  scorn, 
bitterness,  sorrow,  revenge,  and  ecstasy  of  passion  which 
alternate  in  that  r61e.  The  same  praise  may  be  given  her 
other  Wagner  r61es,  especially  the  Briinnhilde,  concerning 
which  a  few  words  from  my  column  in  the  Evening  Post 
may  here  be  admitted : 

"  During  the  years  when  there  was  a  quarantine  against 
German  opera  at  the  Metropolitan,  there  was  at  least  one 
artist  who  was  always  welcome,  even  to  those  who  be- 
longed to  the  opposition.    Lilli  Lehmann,  the  queen  among 


LILLI  LEHMANN,  WAGNER'S  IDEAL    iii 

dramatic  sopranos,  was  such  a  consummate  artist,  so  fin- 
ished a  vocalist,  so  versatile,  so  catholic  in  taste  and  talent, 
that  she  was  coveted  by  every  manager  and  her  popularity 
never  waned.  In  recent  years  she  has  sung  in  this  city 
under  adverse  conditions,  but  now  she  is  again  a  member 
of  the  Grau  Company,  and  all  lovers  of  Wagner  and  good 
singing  in  general  rejoice  thereat.  She  made  her  first  ap- 
pearance this  year  last  evening  as  Briinnhilde  in  the  Wal- 
kure  with  a  superb  cast,  including  Emma  Eames,  Van 
Dyck,  and  Van  Rooy.  No  wonder  that  the  house  was 
crowded,  though  this  was  the  fourth  performance  of  Die 
Walkure  within  a  few  weeks.  M.  Van  Dyck  and  M.  Van 
Rooy  had  a  good  evening,  and  Mme.  Eames  was  more 
musical,  dramatic,  and  charming  than  ever  as  Sieglinde,  in 
spite  of  her  blonde  wig,  which  concealed  her  own  beautiful 
dark  hair. 

"  Frau  Lilli  Lehmann  celebrated  her  fiftieth  birthday  on 
the  15th  of  May  last.  She  makes  no  secret  of  her  age,  and 
why  should  she  ?  Her  voice,  though  of  course  more  easily 
subject  to  fatigue,  is  as  luscious,  as  mellow,  as  glorious  as 
ever,  and  her  art  as  an  actress  was  never  so  delightful  as  it 
is  now.  The  audience  expected  her  to  be  the  same  '  Lilli  * 
as  of  old,  and  when,  after  her  first  notes,  expectations  were 
fully  realized,  there  was  an  outburst  of  great  applause, 
which  was  renewed  after  the  curtain  fell.  She  has  now 
sung  Wagner  nearly  thirty  years,  and  therefore  stands  be- 
fore the  world  as  a  striking  proof  that  his  music  does  not 
injure  the  voice,  provided  it  is  sung,  not  shouted.  She  can 
sing  lyric  music,  too,  as  well  as  dramatic.  Bellini's  Norma 
is  one  of  her  favorite  parts,  and  she  is  anxious  to  sing 
Gluck's  Armida  with  M.  Jean  de  Reszke  (whose  admira- 
tion for  her  is  unbounded,  as  is  his  brother's),  and  it  is  to 
be  hoped  that  the  plan  may  be  carried  out." 

In  her  book,  Lehmann  tells  us  how  she  learned  the  part 
of  Isolde.     At  that  time  she  could  '*  without  weariness, 


112  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

sing  the  first  act  alone  six  times  in  succession,  with  ex- 
pression, action,  and  a  full  voice.  That  was  my  practice 
with  all  my  r61es.  After  I  had  rehearsed  a  role  a  thousand 
times  in  my  own  room,  I  would  go  into  the  empty  theatre 
and  rehearse  single  scenes,  as  well  as  the  whole  opera,  for 
hours  at  a  time.  That  gave  me  the  certainty  of  being  mis- 
tress of  my  resonances  down  to  the  last  note;  and  very 
often  I  felt  able  to  begin  it  all  over  again.  So  must  it  be  if 
one  wishes  to  accomplish  anything  worth  while." 

It  was  not  so  with  Patti;  but  she  was  the  lucky  excep- 
tion which  proves  the  rule.  Moreover,  the  roles  she  habit- 
ually sang  were  much  simpler  and  made  very  much  less 
demand  on  the  brain  and  the  feelings  than  those  to  which 
Lehmann  devoted  so  much  time  and  labor.  On  this  topic 
more  will  be  said  in  the  section  devoted  to  Jean  de  Reszke. 

To  what  does  Lilli  Lehmann  chiefly  owe  her  great  suc- 
cess?   Partly,  of  course,  she  owes  it  to  her  luscious  voice; 
but  more  even  than  to  that,  she  owes  it  to  the  fact  that  she 
is  a  woman  who  thinks  and  feels.    No  singer  who  does 
not  think  and  feel  could  ever  satisfactorily  interpret  a  role 
like  Isolde  or  Briinnhilde.    And  Germany's  greatest  prima 
donna  betrays  her  soul-qualities  in  life  as  well  as  in  her  art. 
She  intends  to  leave  all  her  earnings  to  the  Society  for  the 
Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals.    Her  heart  is  big  enough 
to  sympathize  not  only  with  mankind  but  with  those    , 
"winged  poems  of  the  air"  which  so  many  women  have/ 
ruthlessly  allowed  to  be  slaughtered  for  fashion's  sake. 
Now  it  is  possible  that  a  girl  may  ignorantly  wear  a  bird,  or 
part  of  a  bird,  on  her  hat;  but  if  she  wears  it  knowing  of  / 
the  sufferings  she  helps  to  cause  the  poor  egrets  and  other  / 
birds  and  their  young  ones,  abandoned  to  slow  starvation,/ 
she  may  as  well  make  up  her  mind  that,  however  pretty? 
her  voice  may  be,  she  will  never  be  able  to  interpret  the| 
great  operatic  r61es  and  the  great  songs  in  such  a  way  as 
to  satisfy  and  move  her  hearers. 


JLILLI  LEHMANN,  WAGNER'S  IDEAL    113 

Of  her  exceptional  intelligence,  Lilli  Lehmann  has  given 
abundant  proof  in  her  book  on  singing  and  in  her  analysis 
of  Fidelio,^  a  book  of  72  pages  containing  numerous  hints 
of  the  utmost  importance  to  those  who  would  enter  into 
the  inner  spirit  of  Beethoven's  opera.  In  giving  her  con- 
ception of  the  heroine's  part  she  expresses  regret  that  so 
few  great  artists  have  taken  pains  to  do  such  a  thing — re' 
grets  which  every  student  of  the  opera  will  echo.  Her 
book  on  singing,  the  German  title  of  which  is  Meine 
Gesangs-Kunst  (My  Art  of  Song),  is  a  sort  of  autobio- 
graphic description  of  the  processes  by  which  she  herself 
learned  her  art. 

Readers  who  are  not  students  of  the  vocal  art  will  still 
be  interested  in  her  remarks  on  Patti,  Melba,  Niemann, 
Betz,  Wachtel,  and  other  famous  stage  folk.  The  minute- 
ness of  some  of  her  directions  is  indicated  by  the  fact  that 
she  requires  nearly  a  page  of  text  and  a  diagram  in  two 
colors  to  show  how  she  sings  the  word  Frduleinl  A  chap- 
ter is  devoted  to  her  method  of  interpreting  some  of  the 
most  popular  songs  in  her  repertory,  including  the  Erlking, 
She  is  severe  on  the  voice  factories  which  turn  out  singers 
in  two  years  and  contrasts  this  state  of  affairs  (fostered  by 
ignorant  or  unscrupulous  managers)  with  the  time  when 
an  eight-year  course  was  required  at  the  conservatories. 
There  are  remarks  on  the  duration  of  concerts,  on  ap- 
plause, on  the  behavior  of  audiences,  and  many  other 
things  of  interest  to  music  lovers.  Beginners  who  have 
difficulty  with  their  breath  will  be  consoled  on  reading 
that  the  writer  herself  was  by  nature  very  short  of  breath, 
and  will  be  interested  in  her  method  of  overcoming  this 
defect.  To  some  of  her  suggestions  reference  will  be  made 
in  later  chapters  of  this  volume.  Our  remarks  on  her 
artistic  personality  may  fitly  close  with  two  excerpts  from 

*  Studie  zu  Fidelia.  Von  Lilli  Lehmann.  Leipsic :  Breitkopf  & 
Hartel. 


114  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

her  writings,  one  from  a  newspaper  article,  the  other»from 
the  book  on  singing : 

l*'The  only  unalloyed  joy  is  in  the  pursuit  and  study  of 
/art,  not  in  the  success  which  comes  as  a  result.  The  joy  of 
study,  of  acquisition,  is  enduring;  that  of  success  is  eva- 
nescent. I  know  a  singer  to  whom  the  continual  study  of 
the  vocal  art  gives  such  pure  pleasure  that  in  spite  of  his 
youth  he  has  not  the  slightest  desire  for  a  public  career. 
As  for  myself,  I  should  like  to  have  twenty  years  yet  to 
devote  to  study;  so  interesting  is  the  science  of  sijiging 
that  I  should  never  grow  weary  of  it.  The  more  one 
learns,  the  more  one  realizes  how  much  one  has  still  to 
learn." 

"To  me  it  is  a  matter  of  indifference  whether  the  public 
goes  frantic  or  listens  quietly  and  reflectively,  for  I  give 
out  only  what  I  have  undertaken  to.  If  I  have  put  my 
individuality,  my  powers,  my  love  for  the  work,  into  a  r61e 
or  a  song  that  is  applauded  by  the  public,  I  decline  all 
thanks  for  it  to  myself  personally,  and  consider  the  ap- 
plause as  belonging  to  the  master  whose  work  I  am  inter- 
preting. If  I  have  succeeded  in  making  him  intelligible  to 
the  public,  the  reward  therefor  is  contained  in  that  fact  it- 
self ,  and  I  ask  for  nothing  more.^^ 

Golden  words,  these !  Most  public  singers  think  only  of 
their  personal  success  and  not  of  winning  admiration  for 
the  music  itself;  and  that  is  why  so  few  of  them  rise  to  the 
rank  of  Lilli  Lehmann.  Egotism  brings  its  own  punish- 
ment, in  art  as  in  life. 


MARIANNE  BRANDT  115 


Marianne  Brandt 


The  singers  so  far  considered  had  the  advantage  of  being 
brought  up  in  a  musical  atmosphere  which  did  for  them 
what  a  rich  soil  does  for  garden  plants.  But  let  no  student 
who  lacks  these  advantages  despair.  Some  of  the  greatest 
artists  never  enjoyed  them,  but  grew  up  and  flourished 
under  the  most  adverse  conditions.  One  of  these  was 
Marianne  Brandt,  a  leading  dramatic  contralto  of  the  last 
century,  unexcelled  in  the  Meyerbeer  and  Wagner  operas. 
She  was  one  of  the  singers  to  whom  Wagner  intrusted  the 
r61e  of  Kundry  at  Bayreuth;  Liszt  called  her  "  the  German 
Viardot-Garcia." 

Her  real  name  was  Maria  Anna  Bischof;  she  changed 
it  in  order  that,  in  case  of  failure,  she  would  not  annoy  and 
disgrace  her  parents,  who  had  a  great  prejudice  against 
stage  life.  They  themselves  were  quite  unmusical,  and 
because  an  older  daughter  had  had  piano  lessons  without 
profiting  by  them,  they  concluded  that  it  would  be  useless 
to  let  Marianne  have  any.  The  fact  that  she  sang  all  day, 
and  was  forever  picking  out  tunes  on  the  piano,  did  not 
impress  them.  When  she  got  to  be  thirteen,  however,  she 
was  sent  to  a  teacher,  and  not  long  thereafter  she  was  en- 
trusted with  soprano  solos  in  a  suburban  church  near 
Vienna  (in  which  city  she  was  born  in  1842);  and  soon 
thereafter  she  was  promoted  to  the  Carlskirche  in  the  city 
itself,  where  she  sang  alto. 

The  parents  now  permitted  her  to  have  a  piano  teacher, 
but  she  had  little  use  for  one,  as  she  could  hardly  find  any 
time  to  practise.  She  might  have  found  an  hour  or  two  in 
the  evening  available,  when  the  day's  work  was  over,  but 
she  did  not  wish  to  disturb  her  parents;  indeed,  they  did 
not  allow  her  to  sing  at  the  piano.  ''A  well-behaved  girl  of 
tbe  common  people,"  they  said,  ''must  not  give  her  time 


ii6  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

to  such  useless  things."  During  the  day,  however,  while 
doing  the  cooking,  washing,  and  sewing  for  the  household, 
she  was  at  liberty  to  sing  as  much  as  she  pleased. 

The  family  was  so  poor  that  going  to  the  opera  or  the 
theatre  was  out  of  the  question,  and  it  was  not  till  she  was 
seventeen  that  she  had  a  taste  of  such  pleasures.  It  aroused 
in  her  a  great  desire  to  study  music  professionally.  She 
knew  that  her  parents  looked  on  all  stage  folks  as  de- 
graded, and  that  they  would  be  horrified  to  think  of  her 
associating  with  them;  but  they  made  no  objection  to 
a  purely  musical  career,  so  she  took  lessons  of  a  singing- 
master,  and  at  the  age  of  twenty  succeeded  in  entering  the 
Conservatory.  To  pay  for  her  lessons  she  plied  the 
needle.  "It  was  a  hard  time,"  she  writes,*  "as  I  had  to 
give  every  day  four  hours  of  lessons  in  dressmaking  besides 
doing  my  home  work  and  attending  the  Conservatory  fif- 
teen hours  a  week.  In  those  days  I  slept  barely  four  or 
five  hours,  and  got  up  in  summer  at  three,  in  winter  at 
four-thirty  or  five  o'clock. 

The  critical  moment  in  her  career  came  at  the  Conserv- 
atory examination.  She  was  cast  for  the  part  of  Recha  in 
Halevy's  opera.  The  Jewess,  and  just  as  her  principal 
scene  began  the  sky  darkened  and  a  violent  storm  came 
on.  It  became  so  dark  in  the  hall  that  the  lights  had  to  be 
turned  on.  Amid  real  thunder  and  lightning  she  uttered 
the  words:  "Night  and  its  terrors,  the  rumbling  of  distant 
thunder,  O  heavens,  how  horrible!"  The  situation  made 
a  thrilling  impression  on  her,  stirring  her  soul  to  its  depth 
and  calling  forth  latent  dramatic  powers  which  in  turn 
thrilled  the  audience.  "You  must  go  on  the  stage,"  was 
the  admonition  she  heard  on  all  sides  when  the  perform- 
ance was  over.    And  on  the  stage  she  went,  though  to  a 

*  Musikalische  Studienk'dpfe.  Von  La  Mara.  Band  V.  This  volume 
contains  a  chapter  on  Marianne  Brandt  which  is  obviously  chiefly  auto- 
biographic, and  which  our  narrative  follows  closely. 


MARIANNE  BRANDT  117 

certain  extent  she  shared  her  parents'  instinctive  aversion 
to  it. 

Her  first  public  success  was  as  Romeo.  When  her 
brothers  saw  her  in  man's  attire,  they  exclaimed:  "What! 
you  are  going  on  the  stage  that  way  ?  Then  you  are  our 
sister  no  longer!" 

An  interesting  episode  occurred  in  1868.  She  had 
accepted  an  engagement  at  Hamburg,  and  for  the  first 
time  left  Austria,  going  by  way  of  Berlin,  where  she  called 
on  an  agent  who  had  intrigued  against  her  in  regard  to 
Hamburg.  He  said  brusquely:  '^What  do  you  want  in 
Hamburg?  I  have  secured  the  place  there  for  Recht; 
there  is  no  position  for  you."  Whereupon  she  replied: 
"My  agent  told  me,  'Go  and  sing  for  them,  and  they 
will  take  you.'"  The  Berlin  agent  then  asked  her  to  sing 
for  him,  and  when  she  had  finished  he  said:  "Dear  child, 
you  shall  not  go  to  Hamburg.    I  engage  you  for  Berlin." 

She  was  thunderstruck,  but  he  sent  her  to  the  manager 
of  the  Royal  Opera,  and  in  the  afternoon  of  the  same  day 
she  had  in  her  pocket  a  three  years'  contract,  at  an  hon- 
orarium of  1,800  thalers  the  first  year,  2,000  the  second, 
3,000  the  third. 

Her  good  luck  did  not  make  her  vain.  She  knew  that, 
even  if  she  was  the  successor  of  no  less  an  artist  than 
Johanna  Wagner,  she  still  had  very  much  to  learn.  One 
of  her  biographers  relates  that  once,  after  a  rehearsal  of 
Weber's  Euryanthe,  she  was  not  at  all  pleased  with  her 
performance.  Neither  was  that  other  great  singer  in  the 
cast,  Mathilde  Mallinger,  satisfied  with  her  own  doings. 
"When  we  drove  home  together,"  Mallinger  related,  "we 
nearly  wept  our  eyes  out.  Then  she  gave  me  some  advice 
as  to  how  I  should  study  during  the  night.  I  for  my  part 
exhorted  her  to  be  courageous,  and  again  we  wept.  But 
the  next  day  everything  went  all  right." 

It  is  needless  to  dwell  further  on  Fraulein  Brandt's  career; 


ii8  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

but  mention  must  be  made  of  the  fact  that  the  conscious- 
ness of  her  shortcomings  induced  her  to  spend  the  sum- 
mers of  1869  and  1870  at  Baden-Baden,  taking  lessons  of 
the  famous  Viardot- Garcia.  Some  of  her  greatest  tri- 
umphs subsequently  were  won  in  New  York,  especially  in 
the  roles  of  Ortrud,  Fidelio,  Eglantine,  and  Fides.  **We 
know  of  no  contralto  on  the  stage,"  I  once  wrote,  "who, 
like  Fraulein  Brandt,  can  infuse  even  into  indifferent  r61es 
a  dramatic  fervor  and  realism  that  make  her  the  creator, 
in  part,  of  every  opera  in  which  she  appears.  And  apart 
from  her  artistic  talent  she  has  always  been  animated  by 
a  spirit  of  unselfish  devotion  to  art  itself  which  induced  her 
frequently  to  accept  small  roles  in  order  to  strengthen  the 
cast" — a  practice  which  cannot  be  too  much  commended 
to  other  prominent  singers. 

Like  Jenny  Lind,  Marianne  Brandt  suffered  much 
through  stage  intrigues,  especially  in  Berlin.  We  have 
seen  that  it  was  largely  on  account  of  such  intrigues  that 
the  Swedish  prima  donna  left  the  stage  so  early  in  life. 
Fraulein  Brandt  was  not  routed  by  them,  but  they  embit- 
tered her  life.  *'The  theatre,"  she  wrote,  "can  suffice  those 
only  who  are  born  comedians;  to  me  it  brought  more  pain 
than  joy,  although,  on  the  other  side,  I  must  value  it  as  the 
only  place  where  I  could  fully  develop  my  artistic  individu- 
ality." 

Ernestine  Schumann-Heink 

Personal  beauty  is  a  great  advantage  to  a  concert  or 
opera  singer;  with  it,  success  is  only  half  as  hard  to  win  as 
without  it.  Yet  there  are  more  important  things.  To 
illustrate  this  point,  let  me  cite  a  few  lines  from  my  Wagner 
biography  (vol.  II,  p.  416):  "An  ideal  Kundry  (in  Parsi- 
fal) is  difficult  to  find,  i.  e.,  one  who  combines  the  beauty 
called  for  in  the  second  act  with  the  histrionic  talent  re- 


ERNESTINE  SCHUMANN-HEINK         119 

quired  in  the  first  and  third  acts.  In  case  of  doubt,  it  is 
better  to  sacrifice  the  beauty;  at  least,  Wagner  seemed  to 
think  so.  When  he  invited  Fraulein  Brandt  to  be  one  of 
the  Kundrys,  she  was* delighted,  but  expressed  doubts  of  her 
fitness,  on  account  of  the  directions:  'Kundry,  a  young 
woman  of  the  greatest  beauty.'  'Never  mind  the  beauty!' 
interrupted  the  Meister.  '  I  need  a  clever  actress,  and  that 
you  are;  cosmetics  will  make  up  the  rest.'" 

Amalie  Materna  had  a  similar  experience  with  Wagner, 
which  she  related  to  Mr.  William  Armstrong.  She  had 
wished  to  sing  Briinnhilde,  and  had  sent  Wagner  her  pho- 
tograph, with  a  request  to  that  effect.  Looking  at  it,  as  he 
frankly  told  her  afterward,  he  said:  "That  face  sing  my 
Briinnhilde?  Never!"  But  when  he  met  her  his  decision 
was  reversed  at  first  sight.  When  she  spoke  there  was  a 
good-humored  friendliness — the  Germans  call  it  Gemut- 
lichkeit — that  made  one  forget  the  appearance  of  her  face 
in  repose.  "While  good  looks  are  very  desirable  in  all 
singers,"  Mr.  Armstrong  continues,  "good  art  is  more  so, 
and  surely  you  will  not  stop  to  consider  the  matter  before 
you  agree  that  a  singer  is  better  remembered  by  the  beauty 
of  her  song  than  the  beauty  of  her  features.  Homeliness  is 
a  help  to  success.  It  compels  more  than  ever  to  a  develop- 
ing of  the  beauty  that  is  within,  the  only  source  of  reliance 
when  it  comes  to  a  final  decision." 

Ernestine  Schumann-Heink,  upon  whom  fell  the  mantle 
of  Fraulein  Brandt,  also  had  to  win  her  success  without 
the  advantage  of  personal  beauty;  and  how  great  this  suc- 
cess has  been  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  she  has 
earned  in  one  season,  in  the  United  States,  $125,000,  or 
two-and-one-half  times  as  much  as  the  President! 

When  she  first  sang  for  Director  Jauner  of  the  Imperial 
Opera  in  Vienna  she  was,  in  her  own  words,*  "a  thin, 

*  See  Gustav  Kobbe's  Opera  Singers:  A  Pictorial  Souvenir.  Boston: 
Oliver  Ditson  Co. 


I20  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

scrawny-looking  girl,  and  shockingly  dressed."  Jauner 
was  not  favorably  impressed,  but  told  her  to  go  home,  get 
fed  up,  and  go  to  a  finishing  school.  She  returned,  broken- 
hearted, to  her  parents  at  Graz.  It  was  there  that  the 
famous  prima  donna,  Marie  Wilt,  had  heard  her,  as  a  girl 
of  sixteen,  in  the  quartet  at  a  performance  of  Beethoven's 
ninth  symphony,  and  it  was  owing  to  her  advice  that  little 
Ernestine  had  been  sent  to  Jauner. 

Fortunately,  not  long  after  this  unsuccessful  trip,  an- 
other famous  opera  singer,  Amalie  Materna,  heard  Ernes- 
tine, and  subsequently  spoke  of  her  so  favorably  in  Dres- 
den that  the  manager  of  the  Royal  Opera  there  promised 
to  pay  her  expenses  if  she  would  come  to  sing  for  him. 
This  time  she  had  better  luck.  Director  Platen  promptly 
offered  her  an  engagement  at  $900  a  year,  whereat  she  was 
so  delighted  that  she  threw  her  arms  around  him  and  hung 
to  his  neck.  "  But  aren't  you  a  mere  slip  of  a  girl  to  go  on 
the  operatic  stage?"  he  asked;  and  ^he  answered:  "I  will 
promise  to  eat  and  get  fatter,  and  besides,  I  will  grow 
larger  of  my  own  accord." 

She  certainly  did — but  that  was  later.  When  she  came 
back  to  her  parents,  to  await  the  receipt  of  her  contract, 
they  would  not  believe  her  story.  "Nonsense!"  said  her 
father.  "Do  you  suppose  they  would  engage  a  fright  like 
you?"  But  she  went  to  Dresden  in  due  time  and  made 
her  d^but  on  September  7,  1878,  as  Azucena  in  //  Trova- 
tore.  She  remained  in  that  city  for  years,  singing  in  church 
as  well  as  at  the  opera.  Once,  at  an  important  church 
service,  she  broke  down  in  the  midst  of  her  solo,  whereat 
the  conductor  struck  her  and  called  her  a  goose.  It  made 
her  realize  that  she  had  neglected  her  musical  education, 
so  she  promptly  arranged  for  a  thorough  course  in  technical 
training  with  Franz  Wiillner. 

Unfortunately,  she  had  little  opportunity  to  show  what 
she  could  do,  as  she  had  to  sing  minor  r61es  chiefly.    Nor 


ERNESTINE  SCHUMANN-HEINK         121 

was  her  lot  much  bettered  when  she  left  Dresden,  in  1883, 
and  accepted  an  engagement  at  the  Opera  in  Hamburg. 
She  had  to  undergo  an  extraordinary  amount  of  drudgery, 
having  to  appear  in  comedy  and  farce  as  well  as  in  opera. 
This  hard  and  varied  work  gave  her  the  experience  she 
needed  for  a  stage  success,  and  was,  therefore,  invaluable; 
but  it  was  not  pleasant  at  the  time,  all  the  more  as  here, 
too,  the  big  roles  were  for  a  long  time  withheld  from  her; 
and  it  was  only  through  an  accident — the  indisposition  of 
a  prima  donna — that  our  seconda  donna  had  a  chance  to 
show  that  the  biggest  was  just  her  size.  To  cite  her  own 
words:  ^'1  had  been  cast  for  roles  without  number,  alto  or 
soprano  made  no  difference;  had  been  compelled  to  sub- 
mit to  every  humiliation;  it  had  been  shouted  into  my  ears 
that  I  was  no  singer,  that  I  had  missed  my  vocation,  that  I 
was  a  comedienne  and  not  a  singer,  and  could  meet  with 
success  only  as  such.  For  six  years  I  had  begged  and  en- 
treated for  an  opportunity,  until  Pollini,  in  despair  in  the 
eleventh  hour,  gave  me  Carmen,  without  any  study  or 
rehearsal;  the  same  with  Fides,  the  same  with  Ortrud.  I 
had  been  forced  to  sing  eighteen,  twenty,  twenty-eight,  and 
several  times  thirty- two  times  in  one  month;  I  had  sung  in 
the  chorus;  in  short,  I  had  run  the  gamut  of  every  duty 
known  to  the  opera  stage.  My  husband  was  then  an  in- 
valid and  I  had  seven  children." 

She  began  with  $900  a  year,  and  after  fifteen  years  of 
faithful  service  her  salary  had  risen  to  only  $1,700!  As 
in  the  case  of  Lilli  Lehmann,  it  was  in  New  York  that  the 
financial  value  of  her  voice  and  art  was  first  discovered. 
Maurice  Grau  engaged  her  for  the  season  of  1898-9  at  the 
Metropolitan  Opera  House,  at  $6,500  a  year,  which  seemed 
a  big  sum  to  her;  but  when  he  found  that  she  had  made  an 
immediate  success,  he  tore  up  her  contract,  paid  her  a 
full  season's  salary  for  one-third  of  a  season's  work,  and 
gave  her  a  new  contract  for  $12,000  a  year.     Before  this 


122  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

happened  she  had  been  offered,  because  of  her  American 
success,  $6,000  a  year  for  ten  years  in  Berlin,  and  $10,000 
a  year  for  ten  years  in  Hamburg. 

Her  fame  and  her  income  grew  fast,  and  one  day  in 
1904 — an  unlucky  day  for  the  lovers  of  grand  opera — she 
accepted  an  engagement  to  head  an  operetta  company. 
She  was  earning  at  that  time  $75,000  a  year,  but,  as  the 
star  of  a  comic  opera,  she  could  command  still  more.  So 
she  appeared  in  Lovers  Lottery^  by  Stange  and  Edwards, 
and  delighted  large  audiences  all  over  the  United  States 
for  many  months. 

The  project  of  launching  a  singer  like  Mme.  Schumann- 
Heink  in  operetta  presented  a  peculiar  difficulty.  The 
heroine  of  an  operetta  is  invariably  a  pretty  girl  and  a 
soprano.  Schumann-Heink  was  not  a  pretty  girl  and  she 
was  a  contralto.  The  play,  therefore,  had  to  be  written  to 
order  for  her,  as  in  the  old  times  when  even  Mozart  had 
to  write  *' tailor-made"  operas. 

At  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House  some  of  the  roles 
sung  by  her,  notably  Magdalena  in  Wagner's  Meister- 
singefj  had  given  proof  of  her  remarkable  comic  gifts 
(which  had  been  developed  by  her  performances  in  Ham- 
burg), and  this,  no  doubt,  had  suggested  her  engagement 
as  a  comic-opera  star. 

There  was  great  surprise  when  it  was  first  announced 
that  she  had  accepted  this  engagement.  Especially  did  the 
thousands  of  young  American  women  who  were  studying 
for  the  musical  stage  think  it  topsy-turvy  that  a  singer  who 
had  reached  the  highest  pinnacle  of  grand-opera  fame 
should  voluntarily  and  deliberately  desert  that  elevated 
position  and  descend  to  the  humbler  plateau  of  operetta. 
These  young  women  all  want  to  be  grand-opera  singers 
from  the  start,  and  scorn  the  very  suggestion  that  they 
should  condescend  to  appear  in  operetta.  The  great  con- 
tralto proved  that  one  can  be  a  first-class  artist,  and  sing 


ERNESTINE  SCHUMANN-HEINK         123 

with  deep  feeling,  in  this  humble  sphere,  too.  Fritzi 
Scheff  is  another  singer  who  left  grand  opera  for  operetta 
and  proved  that  such  a  step  does  not  in  itself  imply  ar- 
tistic degradation. 

Nevertheless,  there  was  reason  to  rejoice  when  Schu- 
mann-Heink  ended  this  successful  experiment  and  re- 
turned to  the  realm  of  serious  art.  She  now  devoted  her- 
self for  some  years  to  concert-giving,  which,  while  it 
eclipsed  her  skill  as  an  actress,  had  the  advantage,  from 
the  public's  point  of  view,  of  enabling  many  thousands  to 
enjoy  her  singing  in  towns  where  grand  opera  is  never 
heard.  Like  Sembrich,  Nordica,  Gadski,  and  other  stars 
of  the  Metropolitan,  she  found  that  she  could  thus  in  a 
season  earn  even  more  than  at  the  opera-house,  and  quite 
as  honorably,  singing  the  lieder  of  the  great  masters. 

Only  in  America,  however!  In  the  winter  of  1908-9, 
she  gave  a  concert  in  Hamburg  which  yielded  $2,671. 
But  that  was  quite  exceptional.  To  the  Berlin  correspond- 
ent of  the  Musical  Courier  she  stated  that  the  receipts  for 
her  European  concert  tour  would  amount  to  only  one- 
sixth  of  her  American  earnings  during  the  preceding 
season,  and  she  gave  this  further  interesting  information: 

A  concert  tour  in  this  country  is  very  different  from  one 
in  America.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  not  possible  to  visit 
anything  like  the  number  of  cities  I  sing  in  at  home  [the 
great  diva  always  speaks  of  America  as  her  home];  in 
America  I  can  give  concerts  in  towns  of  5,000  inhabitants 
and  have  full  houses,  as  people  come  from  long  distances 
from  the  surrounding  towns  to  hear  me.  Over  here  I  find 
it  impossible  to  give  concerts  of  my  own,  even  in  cities  of 
100,000  inhabitants,  like  Magdeburg  and  Halle,  for  in- 
stance. The  music  lovers  of  the  large  German  cities  set 
aside  a  certain  amount  for  concerts  each  season,  and  they 
attend  the  regular  subscription  series  in  their  own  towns, 
and  won't  spend  a  penny  more  for  anything  else;  at  least, 


124  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

so  my  manager,  Fernow,  tells  me.  So  my  appearances 
here  are'  limited  to  a  few  great  cities,  in  which  I  can  give  my 
recitals,  and  to  operatic  engagements  in  the  larger  towns. 

She  further  stated  that,  in  her  opinion,  American  audi- 
ences derive  more  real  pleasure  from  concerts  than  EXiro- 
peans,  because  they  are  less  satiated  and  therefore  less 
likely  to  indulge  in  carping  criticism.  "The  Americans  go 
to  musical  entertainments  for  the  sole  purpose  of  enjoying 
themselves." 

Ernestine  Schumann-Heink's  maiden  name  was  Roess- 
ler.  She  was  born  at  Lieben,  near  Prague,  but  that  does 
not  imply  that  she  is  a  Bohemian.  Her  father  was  sn 
Austrian  army  officer  who  happened  to  be  stationed  at 
Lieben  at  the  time  (June  15,  186 1)  when  his  daughter  was 
born;  and  her  mother  was  an  Italian.  Thus  it  was  partly 
by  inheritance  that  she  acquired  the  faculty  of  uniting  in 
her  art  the  excellences  of  the  Italian  and  German  vocal 
styles,  a  faculty  which  redounds  to  the  advantage  of  operas 
of  all  schools  and  helps  a  singer  who  commands  it  to 
triumphant  success. 

Perhaps  of  all  her  rdles  the  two  which  will  longest  remain 
in  the  memory  of  those  who  saw  her  in  them  are  Azucena 
in  Verdi's  //  Trovatore,  and  Brangane  in  Wagner's  Tristan 
and  Isolde,  In  Verdi's  opera,  thanks  to  her  Wagnerian 
traming,  she  surpassed  her  Italian  colleagues  in  distinctness 
of  enunciation  and  dramatic  intensity,  making  the  un- 
happy gypsy  mother  live  before  our  eyes;  and  in  the  Wagner 
opera  she  sang — particularly  the  thrilling  song  of  warning 
in  the  second  act — with  an  opulence  and  luscious  beauty  of 
tone  rarely  heard  in  German  opera. 

By  way  of  explaining  her  great  success  in  the  concert 
hall,  let  me  cite  two  paragraphs  I  wrote  for  the  Evening 
Post  concerning  the  recital  she  gave  in  New  York  on 
March  7,  1908: 


ERNESTINE  SCHUMANN-HEINK         125 

"  Mme.  Schumann-Heink  is  a  big  wonmn  with  a  big 
voice  and  a  big  heart.  Even  without  that  heart  to  give  it 
emotional  resonance,  her  voice  would  be  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  organs  of  the  present  time :  round,  full,  vibrant, 
luscious,  varied  in  tone  color,  it  is  a  thing  of  beauty  and  a 
joy  forever.  Backed  up  by  that  heart,  it  becomes  thrilling 
whenever  there  is  a  dramatic  climax.  The  fourth  song  on 
the  list  at  her  Carnegie  Hall  recital  on  Saturday  was 
Schubert's  The  Almighty.  Liszt,  who  considered  this  the 
sublimest  song  ever  written,  nevertheless  was  not  satisfied 
with  it  as  Schubert  had  given  it  to  the  world,  for  a  voice 
with  pianoforte.  He  thought  it  needed  a  chorus  and  an 
orchestra  to  exhaust  its  overwhelming  possibilities.  He 
did  not  live  to  hear  Schumann-Heink  sing  it.  When  that 
stupendous  voice  of  hers,  charged  with  deepest  feeling,  in- 
toned the  superb  melody  of  Schubert,  the  whole  vast  hall 
was  filled  with  a  volume  of  sound  that  set  the  nerves 
vibrating  with  religious  ecstasy  like  a  cathedral  organ. 

''After  all,  emotion  is  the  greatest  thing  in  art.  Schu- 
mann-Heink would  be  a  great  artist  even  with  a  mediocre 
voice  and  a  small  one.  She  does  not  abuse  its  sonority;  in 
songs  that  require  a  soft  tone  and  delicacy  of  execution, 
she  is  a  superlative  artist,  too.  She  had  such  songs  on  her 
Saturday  programme — Schubert's  Haideroslein  and  Loewe's 
Mutter  an  der  Wiege,  for  instance.  She  sang  Jensen's  Lean 
Thy  Cheek  Against  My  Cheek,  with  the  fervor  of  a  bride; 
she  sang  Rubinstein's  Forest  Witch  with  romantic  spirit; 
she  sang  three  Hungarian  folksongs  in  the  Magyar  language 
with  an  abandon  that  suggested  Paderewski's  playing  of  a 
Hungarian  rhapsody." 

Here  is  a  German  tribute  from  the  Munich  Allgemeine 
Zeitung: 

She  is  an  enchanting  lieder  singer,  and  what  is  rarer 
still  at  present,  she  is  a  genuine  Schubert  interpreter.     She 


126  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

can  venture  to  sing  the  best-known  songs  of  that  master, 
who  is  neglected  in  our  concert  halls  in  favor  of  later 
writers  who  are  not  worthy  of  tying  his  shoestrings.  .  .  . 
Whoever  has  heard  her  sing  Schubert's  eternally  beautiful 
Allmacht  can  understand  that  President  Roosevelt  enthu- 
siastically embraced  her  when  she  sang  it  at  the  White 
House.  .  .  .  The  enthusiasm  last  night  was  tremendous, 
as  it  is  in  all  cities  to  which  this  glorious  artist  takes  her 
chaste  German  art.  The  audience  wanted  more,  more! 
She  added  two  extras,  one  of  them  Schubert's  Death  and 
the  Maiden,  which  I  have  not  heard  sung  so  thrillingly  since 
the  death  of  Hermine  Spies.  Mme.  Schumann-Heink's  big 
voice,  which  is  equally  at  home  in  the  alto,  mezzo,  and 
soprano  registers,  was  at  the  end  as  fresh  as  at  the  begin- 
ning. Everything  was  done  with  playful  ease,  and  many 
singers  were  present  to  hear — and  to  learn. 

There  are  few,  even  among  the  greatest,  who  could  not 
learn  from  her.  She  complains  that  singers  to-day  are  too 
much  like  the  get-rich-quick  companies  of  which  one  hears 
so  much.  On  students  who  wish  to  succeed  she  impresses 
above  all  things  three  points:  (i)  You  cannot  jump  to  the 
top;  you  must  climb  from  the  lowest  rung  of  the  ladder  to 
the  highest,  omitting  none;  (2)  begin  with  the  old  Italian 
method,  for  that  alone  gives  the  flexibility  that  makes  it 
possible  to  do  anything  like  justice  to  the  Wagner  operas; 
(3)  begin  with  small  parts,  so  as  to  gain  the  necessary 
experience  and  to  obtain  repose  and  confidence.  She  is 
fond  of  quoting  Mme.  Krebs-Michalesi,  who  said:  "Con- 
sider the  stage,  b£  it  concert  or  opera,  sacred  ground  upon 
which  you  are  fulfilling  a  mission  as  priestess  of  your  art, 
and  if  you  need  only  carry  a  chair  on  the  stage,  be  as  sin- 
cere and  as  conscientious  in  this  task  as  in  performing  the 
greatest  r61e." 

That  one  can  be — contrary  to  the  general  belief — a  great 
artist  and  a  good  mother  at  the  same  time  is  one  of  the  useful 


PAULINE  LUCCA  127 

lessons  taught  by  Schumann-Heink's  career.  She  has 
reared  a  family  of  eight  children,  to  whom  she  is  devoted 
with  all  her  heart.  To  give  them  the  advantages  of  the  New 
World,  she  became  an  American  citizen  and  made  her 
home  on  a  seventy-five-acre  farm  near  Paterson,  N.  J. 
Her  eighth  child  she  christened  George  Washington,  and 
he  and  his  sister  Maria  Theresa  are,  as  a  newspaper  writer 
has  said,  "as  American  as  the  flag  that  is  raised  on  the 
lawn  every  Fourth  of  July.  It  is  the  spell  of  this  home  and 
these  children  that  drew  the  homesick  mother  from  Lin- 
coln, Neb.,  one  day.  She  made  the  journey  of  1,500  miles, 
and  took  a  night  ride  over  eight  miles  of  country  roads,  to 
surprise  the  sleeping  youngsters  with  her  kisses  and  her 
arms  around  their  necks." 

Pauline  Lucca 

Schumann-Heink's  advice  that  a  singer  should  begin  on 
the  lowest  rung  of  the  ladd'er  to  fame  was  followed — before 
she  gave  it — by  two  other  Austrians — Amalie  Materna  and 
Pauline  Lucca.  Materna  (whom  Wagner  chose  to  create 
the  part  of  Brlinnhilde  at  the  first  Bayreuth  Festival  and 
that  of  Kundry  at  the  second)  began  as  a  chorus  girl,  and 
then,  for  four  years,  sang  in  operettas.  Lucca,  too, 
was,  for  a  time,  a  chorus  girl.  She  was  first  heard  in  a 
church  choir,  where  she  once  took  the  place  of  the  soprano 
soloist  and  astonished  the  congregation  with  the  beauty  of 
her  voice.  Too  poor  to  pay  for  lessons,  she  became,  at  the 
age  of  fifteen,  a  member  of  the  chorus  in  the  Karnthnerthor 
Theater. 

There  are  many  advantages  to  be  obtained  from  such 
a  position.  A  chorus  singer  not  only  becomes  familiar 
with  the  music  of  the  current  operas,  but  has  opportu- 
nities to  observe  the  world's  greatest  artists  at  close  range 
and  thus  to  learn  many  a  valuable  lesson  in  impersonation. 


128  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  held  that,  once  in  the  chorus,  a 
singer  is  apt  to  be  overlooked  and  to  remain  there  for  lack 
of  opportunity  to  show  what  she  can  do.  This  was  actually 
the  case  with  Pauline  Lucca.  The  manager  who  engaged 
her  evidently  could  not  tell  a  jewel  from  a  pebble;  the 
only  part  of  any  distinction  he  gave  her  was  the  first 
Bridesmaid  in  the  Freischiitz.  But  she  had  an  opportunity 
to  appear  at  Olmiitz  as  Elvira,  in  Ernani,  and  subsequently 
at  Prague  in  the  part  of  Valentine,  in  Les  Huguenots.  She 
stood  this  severe  test  so  well  that  she  was  promptly  en- 
gaged as  prima  donna  at  the  Prague  Opera;  and  in  1861 
the  twenty-year-old  girl  was  offered  an  engagement  for 
life  at  the  Royal  Opera  in  Berlin,  which  she,  of  course, 
accepted  promptly. 

It  was  to  Meyerbeer  that  she  owed  this  engagement. 
He  had  been  looking  for  a  long  time  for  an  artist  qualified 
to  create  the  part  of  the  heroine  in  his  last  opera,  UAjri- 
caine;  and  when  he  heard  Lucca  he  concluded  at  once  that, 
under  his  own  guidance,  she  would  become  an  ideal 
Selika.  So  he  took  her  in  hand,  and  his  prognosis  proved 
to  be  correct.  She  benefited  so  much  by  his  advice  and 
stagecraft  that  she  referred  to  him  afterward  as  her  real 
teacher.  He,  on  his  part,  was  so  much  pleased,  not  only 
with  her  singing  but  with  her  keen  instinct  for  realistic 
acting,  that  he  called  her  "a  genuine  David  Garrick." 

Her  singing  was  by  no  means  flawless,  and  florid  music 
was  not  her  jorte.  Her  strength  lay  in  her  ability  to  blend 
her  singing  and  acting  so  intimately  that  one  did  not  con- 
sciously think  of  either,  but  enjoyed  her  impersonations  as~ 
if  they  were  scenes  from  life.  As  one  of  her  biographers, 
La  Mara,  has  observed,  song  was  to  her  "  chiefly  a  means 
of  expression,  and  only  in  the  service  of  the  drama  did  it 
reveal  its  full  power  in  her  case." 

Her  popularity  in  Berlin  rose  to  a  frenzy,  and  for  some 
years  she  was  the  queen  of  the  Royal  Opera,  as  capricious 


PAULINE  LUCCA  129 

and  unreliable  as  the  Carmen  she  impersonated  with  so 
much  vivacity.  A  new  star,  Mathilde  Mallinger,  arose  in 
1869;  she  soon  became  the  idol  of  the  Wagnerites,  and 
forthwith  cliques  were  formed  and  intrigues  carried  on 
which  so  greatly  angered  Lucca  that  she  sent  in  her  resig- 
nation. Mallinger  did  the  same,  and  hers  was  reluctantly 
accepted  (though  she  was  re-engaged  a  year  later).  Nev- 
ertheless, the  capricious  Lucca  broke  her  contract  in  1872 
and  accepted  a  brilliant  offer  for  an  American  tour.  In  the 
United  States  her  triumphs  were  like  those  of  Jenny  Lind 
and  Nilsson.  As  she  herself  wrote  to  her  former  teacher, 
Uschmann: 

"The  first  two  months  have  yielded  me  the  handsome 
sum  of  $44,000.  ...  If  the  end  is  like  the  beginning,  I 
hope  to  be  able,  after  two  seasons,  to  carry  out  my  ardent 
desire  to  say  farewell  to  the  stage.  I  can  see  you  laughing 
at  that  statement,  and  yet  it  is  true!  I  cannot  tell  you  how 
happy  I  shall  be  on  the  day  when  I  shall  be  able  to  get 
away  from  this  fancied  bliss — the  day  when  I  shall  be  able 
to  live  really  for  myself  and  not  always  have  to  think  of  my 
soprano,  which  was  and  unhappily  still  is  the  greatest  solici- 
tude of  my  life;  for  I  assure  you  I  live  here  like  a  prisoner, 
as  the  climate  is  so  bad  that  I  have  occasion  for  regret 
every  time  I  put  my  nose  out-of-doors." 

Her  second  New  York  season  was  less  successful.  The 
times  were  hard  and  Strakosch  brought  a  second  Italian 
Opera  Company,  with  Nilsson,  to  compete  with  Maretzek, 
who  had  Lucca  and  lima  di  Murska,  the  brilliant  Austrian 
(Croatian)  colorature  singer,  who  could  be  relied  on  to 
execute  "the  most  difficult  passages  of  ornamentation 
with  unerring  certainty."  Maretzek  asked  his  two  stars  to 
sing  for  less  than  they  had  been  getting,  but  they  refused 
and  undertook  to  manage  an  opera  company  of  their  own 
in  Cuba — with  the  result  to  be  expected,  each  losing  a 
large  sum  of  money. 


I30  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

A  warning  example  in  this  respect,  Lucca  serves  as  a 
model,  on  the  other  hand,  in  so  far  as  she  retired  from  the 
stage  before  her  powers  were  seriously  impaired. 

She  was  twice  married.  From  her  first  husband,  Baron 
von  Rhaden,  she  obtained  a  divorce,  and  in  America  she 
married  another  baron.  Von  Wallhofen,  with  whom  she 
lived  happily.  From  the  date  of  his  death,  in  1899,  to  her 
own>death,  in  1908,  she  never  sang  again  even  in  her  home. 
Her  fatal  illness  was  traced  to  the  injuries  she  had  received 
eight  years  previously  from  a  fall  caused  by  an  orange  peel 
on  the  sidewalk.    She  left  property  valued  at  $400,000. 

Unlike  so  many  other  singers,  she  did  not  devote  the 
latter  part  of  her  career  to  teaching.  Experiments  she 
made  in  that  line  proved  so  disappointing  that  she  gave 
them  up.  In  her  own  words:  "In  two  months  I  was 
supposed  to  make  great  singers  out  of  the  young  women 
who  were  my  pupils,  but,  unfortunately,  I  knew  no  patent 
process  of  instilling  the  necessary  musical  knowledge. 
If  I  criticised  they  lost  patience  and  stopped  their  lessons. 
That  which  was  deadly  earnest  to  me  they  considered  as 
capriciousness.  I  will  not  go  into  details  as  to  the  in- 
gratitude of  pupils  whom,  in  addition  to  giving  free 
instruction,  I  also  clothed  and  supported.  This  was  all 
so  discouraging  that  I  gave  up  teaching." 

Her  repertory  included  about  sixty  operas.  Perhaps  her 
most  conspicuous  failure  was  Elsa,  in  Lohengrin;  yet  she 
had  sense  enough  to  realize  that  the  fault  was  her  own. 
The  bitterest  experience  in  her  life  was  caused  by  the 
Wagnerian  champions  of  Mallinger.  But  she  stood  up 
for  Wagner  when  she  heard  the  silly  but  oft-repeated  accu- 
sation that  his  music  ruins  voices.  "That  is  all  foolish 
talk,"  she  said.  "  Neither  Wagner  nor  any  other  composer 
can  ruin  the  voice  of  the  vocalist  who  knows  how  to  sing. 
Nowadays  singers  think  they  are  finished  and  ready  for 
the  great  public  after  only  one  year's  study.    Six  years  of 


MARCELLA  SEMBRICH  131 

hard  work  are  needed  to  thoroughly  train  the  voice.  Let 
the  artists  study  six  years  and  then  practise  scales  every 
day,  as  I  do,  then  we  shall  have  vocalists  who  know  how 
to  sing — and  not  only  Wagner,  but  everything." 

Pauline  Lucca  is  usually  classed  among  Austrian  sing- 
ers, and  an  Austrian  we  may  as  well  consider  her.  She 
was  born  in  Vienna  (1841);  her  mother  was  a  German, 
her  father  a  Jew  from  Venice,  which  for  a  time  belonged  to 
Austria.  She  also  had  the  true  Viennese  chic,  piquancy, 
and  vivacity.  But  the  secret  of  her  success  is  not  to  be 
sought  in  parentage  or  nationality;  it  lay  in  her  fascinat- 
ing artistic  personality. 

Marcella  Sembrich 

Like  Pauline  Lucca,  Marcella  Sembrich  may  be  classed 
with  Austrian  singers;  she  was  born  (1858)  in  Galicia 
(Austrian  Poland).  Her  maiden  name  was  Praxede  Mar- 
celline  Kochanska,  but  when  she  went  on  the  stage  she 
wisely  changed  that  for  her  mother's  German  maiden 
name,  Sembrich. 

Her  experiences  in  early  life  were  similar  to  those  of 
Christine  Nilsson.  There  was  a  large  family — nine  sons 
and  four  daughters — and  in  order  to  get  bread  and  butter 
for  all  of  these,  the  musical  members  of  the  family  trav- 
elled with  the  father  through  the  provinces,  playing  at 
fairs,  weddings,  and  other  merry-makings.  Marcella  had 
learned  the  violin  from  the  age  of  six,  and  many  a  time  did 
she  play  it  at  balls  and  other  social  gatherings.  Her  excep- 
tional talent  attracted  the  attention  of  an  old  gentleman 
named  Lanowitch,  who  placed  her  in  the  Lemberg  Con- 
servatory. There  she  studied  the  piano  for  a  number  of 
years  with  Prof.  Wilhelm  Stengel,  who  subsequently  be- 
came her  husband.  His  ambition  was  to  make  of  her  a 
concert  pianist,  and  he  planned  to  take  her  to  Liszt;  but 
in  passing  through  Vienna  she  played  for  Professor  Eppstein 


132 


SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 


and  also,  at  his  request,  sang  for  him.  The  result  was  that 
he  advised  her  to  cultivate  her  voice,  but  without  giving  up 
the  piano.  She  did  so,  studying  the  voice  with  Rokitansky, 
and  subsequently,  at  Milan,  with  the  younger  Lamperti. 
Like  all  great  teachers,  Lamperti  gave  special  attention  to 
breathing.  He  used  to  say  to  his  pupil:  "No  water,  no 
sailing;  no  breathing,  no  singing.  The  voice  sails  on  the 
breath."  In  referring  to  these  experiences  Mme.  Sem- 
brich  once  said  to  Gustav  Kobbe:  ''Think  how  many 
young  singers  after  five  years  get  a  tremolo.  They  are  not 
well  taught." 

It  was  not  till  she  was  nineteen  and  had  married  Professor 
Stengel  that  she  made  her  first  appearance  on  the  operatic 
stage — at  Athens,  in  /  Puritani.  But  what  is  most  worth 
noting  regarding  her  early  career  is  that  after  she  had  won 
genuine  successes  she  felt  that  her  voice  needed  further 
training  and  therefore  returned  to  Lamperti. 

As  an  actress  she  is  practically  self-taught — a  remark- 
able feat  those  will  declare  who  have  been  amused  by  her 
Rosina,  her  Norina,  her  Zerlina,  or  moved  by  the  pathos 
of  her  Violetta  (her  favorite  role),  her  Mimi,  or  her  Gilda. 
Her  repertory  includes  37  operas,  and  with  the  exception 
of  two  of  these  (Marguerite  and  Rosina)  she  appeared  in 
all  of  them  before  she  had  had  the  advantage — or  disad- 
vantage— of  hearing  others  in  them. 

To  the  end  of  her  operatic  career,  Sembrich  remained  as 
frisky  as  a  school-girl  in  roles  of  the  Rosina  type;  which  is 
the  more  remarkable  as  she  is  extremely  short-sighted. 
She  once  told  me  that  she  overcomes  this  defect  by  care- 
fully surveying  the  ground  before  the  curtain  goes  up,  rely- 
ing also  on  her  colleagues  for  an  occasional  warning  word.* 

*  Eye-glasses  or  spectacles  have  heretofore  been  tabooed  by  singers  and 
actors,  but  now  an  English  optician  is  said  to  have  invented  a  new  kind 
of  glasses  which  players  need  not  hesitate  to  use.  The  lenses  are  very 
small  and  close  to  the  eyeball,  and  the  frame  is  practically  invisible,  being 
flesh-colored. 


MARCELLA  SEMBRICH  133 

One  of  the  secrets  of  Patti's  success  was,  in  the  words  of 
Hanslick,  ''her  unceasing  delight  in  her  profession."  The 
same  is  true  of  Sembrich.  After  one  of  her  appearances  as 
Rosina,  in  the  Barber  oj  Seville,  with  Campanari,  Edouard 
de  Reszke,  Carbone,  and  Salignac,  I  wrote:  ''It  was  a 
great  evening  for  Italian  opera.  The  singers  seemed  to 
enjoy  themselves  in  Rossini's  comic  music  like  a  flock  of 
inland  ducks  in  a  pond  improvised  by  a  shower,  and  their 
merriment  proved  contagious  to  the  audience.  .  .  .  Now 
that  Patti  is  practically  out  of  the  field,  no  singer  can  com- 
pete with  this  Austrian  in  Rossini's  music,  which  requires 
taste  as  well  as  a  voice  of  lovely  quality  and  extreme  agility. 
She  has  all  these  qualities,  and  in  the  lesson  scene,  particu- 
larly, displayed  them  so  effectively  that  the  audience  went 
wild  with  enthusiasm." 

No  one  would  have  ever  suspected,  on  seeing  Sembrich 
thus  romping  and  warbling  on  the  stage,  that  she  was 
horribly  nervous — tortured  by  stage  fright. 

It  is  commonly  supposed  that  stage  fever  is  particularly 
a  malady  of  young  singers,  but  there  is  one  reason  why  it 
should  aflflict  the  older  artists  even  more  severely.  "  I  find 
I  am  more  nervous,"  Sembrich  once  said,  "as  my  reputa- 
tion increases,  for  more  is  expected  of  me." 

Regarding  stage  life  in  general  she  remarked:  "An 
operatic  career  is  a  fine  thing,  but  an  opera-singer  really 
doesn't  'live,'  and  if  it  were  not  for  a  few  minutes'  joy 
when  you  hear  thousands  applauding,  there  would  be  little 
tempting  in  the  career.  For  the  minute  the  artist  is  off  the 
stage  she  thinks  how  the  next  thing  is  going.  If  one  only 
could  always  end  a  performance  and  never  begin  it!  If  I 
myself  could  not  feel  how  everything  was  going,"  she 
added  humorously,  "  I  could  tell  from  Stengel.  He  always 
sits  in  the  audience  and  comes  in  to  see  me  between  the 
acts.  He  has  a  very  long  nose,  and  if  it  is  longer  than 
usual,  I  know  that  I  have  not  done  well." 


134  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

Few  singers  have  known  so  well  as  Sembrich  how  to 
preserve  the  youthful  freshness  of  the  voice.  How  did 
she  do  it  ?  In  the  first  place,  by  taking  very  good  care  of 
her  health.  During  the  season,  she  seldom  missed  her  two- 
hour  morning  walk  in  the  park,  and  in  summer  she  put  on 
short  skirts  for  long  walks  in  the  Tyrolean  or  Swiss  Alps. 
For  years,  too,  she  contented  herself  with  the  honors  and 
the  sums — princely  both — she  won  in  America,  refusing  to 
overfatigue  her  voice  by  singing  also  in  European  opera- 
houses.  Her  second  secret  lay  in  her  having  always  re- 
mained within  her  proper  sphere.  While  her  voice  was 
always  rich  and  full,  and  had  great  carrying  power,  it  was 
not  strong  enough  to  compete  with  the  big  orchestra  in 
Wagner's  operas,  and  she  therefore  resisted  the  temptation 
to  appear  in  them. 

For  years  Sembrich  enjoyed  the  distinction  of  being  the 
best  living  representative  of  the  hel  canto.  Now,  hel  canto 
is  of  two  kinds — one  florid,  the  other  broadly  melodious. 
In  both  kinds  she  approached  perfection,  and  for  that  rea- 
son she  was  the  ideal  Mozart  singer.  One  might  say  that 
Sembrich  was — and  still  is,  in  1909 — among  singers  what 
Mozart  was  among  composers.  Her  voice,  as  Mr.  Krehbiel 
has  truly  remarked,  "awakens  echoes  of  Mme.  Patti's 
organ,  but  has  warmer  life-blood  in  it." 

It  is  commonly  supposed  that  the  operatic  stage  is  the 
only  proper  place  for  the  display  of  what  is  known  as  hel 
canto;  but  that  is  a  great  mistake.  Beautiful  singing  is  as 
necessary  for  the  interpretation  of  the  lieder  of  Schubert, 
Schumann,  and  Grieg  as  for  the  operas  of  Mozart,  Rossini, 
and  Bellini.  Mme.  Sembrich  applied  the  hel  canto  methods 
to  the  lyric  song,  and  her  success  was  so  great  that  when- 
ever she  has  given  a  recital  she  has  had  a  ''Paderewski 
audience,"  and  her  receipts  are  more  than  double  the  large 
sum  she  gets  for  a  night  at  the  opera.  If  her  recitals  have 
been  fewer  than  her  operatic  appearances,  that  is  only  be- 


MARCELLA  SEMBRICH  135 

cause  concert-goers  are  much  less  numerous  than  lovers 
of  the  opera. 

In  choosing  her  songs  she  exercises  the  same  discretion 
as  in  selecting  her  operatic  parts,  avoiding  the  intensely 
dramatic,  tragic,  and  passionate,  for  which  neither  her 
voice  nor  her  temperament  is  suited,  although  she  is  mis- 
tress of  deep  pathos,  as  witness  her  Violetta.  Like  most 
Poles,  she  has  a  speaking  knowledge  of  several  languages; 
it  makes  no  difference  to  her  whether  a  song  is  in  Italian, 
French,  German,  English,  Polish,  or  Russian.  But  it  does 
make  a  difference  to  the  foolish  debutantes  who  imitate  her! 

When  the  admirers  of  Sembrich  learned,  in  January, 
1909,  that  she  had  fully  made  up  her  mind  to  leave  the 
operatic  stage,  they  were  partly  consoled  by  the  fact  that 
she  would  still  give  song  recitals.  The  occasion  of  her  fare- 
well to  the  opera  was  also  the  celebration  of  the  twenty- 
fifth  anniversary  of  her  first  appearance  in  New  York.  It 
occurred  on  February  6,  and  amounted  to  an  ovation  such 
as  perhaps  no  other  singer  had  ever  received.  After  the 
performance  of  acts  from  Don  Pasquale,  Barber  0}  Seville, 
and  Traviata,  in  which  leading  singers  of  the  Metropolitan 
were  associated  with  her,  came  the  farewell  ceremonies. 
The  curtain  parted  again,  revealing  a  scene  with  a  throne 
in  the  centre  for  the  prima  donna,  who  entered  with  Mr. 
Gatti-Casazza,  followed  by  the  artists  and  girls  scattering 
flowers.  Mr.  Dippel  read  a  set  of  resolutions  whereby 
Mme.  Sembrich  was  elected  an  honorary  member  of  the 
Metropolitan  company.  Various  gifts  were  then  presented, 
from  the  directors,  the  singers,  the  orchestra,  and  finally  a 
string  of  pearls  and  a  jewelled  watch,  the  gift  of  over  a 
thousand  admirers,  which  was  presented  by  the  Hon.  Seth 
Low,  with  appropriate  remarks.  Mme.  Sembrich's  cordial 
response  of  thanks  followed,  and  then  the  orchestra  played 
The  Star-Spangled  Banner,  and  the  demonstration  ended. 
Many  in  the  audience  were  in  tears  at  various  points  of  the 


136  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

ceremonies.  The  tributes  were  so  genuine,  so  sincere,  that 
they  touched  the  hearts  of  all. 

It  is  well  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  Marcella  Sembrich 
was  honored  on  this  occasion  as  a  noble  woman  as  well  as 
a  great  artist.  No  breath  of  scandal  had  ever  attached  to 
her  name,  and  the  warmth  of  her  reception  was  a  reflection 
of  the  warmth  of  the  true  womanly  heart  which  was  always 
hers.  When  Anton  Seidl  died  and  a  performance  was  ar- 
ranged for  the  benefit  of  his  widow,  Marcella  Sembrich 
volunteered  her  services,  though  she  had  never  sung  with 
Seidl.  It  was  that  heart  which  is  revealed  in  her  singing 
and  which  gives  it  its  greatest  charm. 

"My  memories  of  grand  opera  go  back  nearly  half  a 
century,"  said  one  man  to  me,  "but  never  have  I  witnessed 
anything  comparable  to  this  Sembrich  farewell." 

A  few  days  before  this  farewell  I  had  a  talk  with  Mme. 
Sembrich  in  which  she  spoke  of  the  secrets  of  her  success. 
In  regard  to  her  wonderful  cantilena — her  ability  to  sing  a 
broad,  sustained  melody  flawlessly — she  said:  "My  violin 
playing  helped  me  to  acquire  it!  The  bow  is  the  breath  of 
the  violin;  drawing  it  slowly  across  the  strings  is  like  sing- 
ing a  broad  melody.  I  learned  much  from  my  bow."  She 
continued  as  follows: 

I  was  seventeen  years  old  before  I  began  to  take  singing 
lessons.  It  is  not  well  to  begin  at  an  earlier  age,  though 
there  are  exceptions.  For  two  months,  while  I  was  taking 
lessons  of  Lamperti,  I  did  not  practise  at  home  but  only 
under  his  direct  supervision,  so  as  not  to  acquire  bad  habits. 
Subsequently  I  decided  that  an  hour  and  a  half  of  prac- 
tising at  home  was  sufficient,  and  I  found  it  best  not  to 
practise  more  than  ten  minutes  at  a  time.  After  three 
years  of  study  I  thought  of  making  my  debut.  The  man- 
ager of  the  Italian  Opera  at  Athens  heard  me  sing  at  Lam- 
perti's  studio  in  Milan,  and  made  me  an  offer;  thus  it  hap- 
pened that  I  made  my  first  appearance  on  the  stage  in 


MARCELLA    SEMBRICH  137 

Greece.  I  was  already  married  at  the  time  of  this  d^but; 
but  I  concluded  my  voice  was  still  too  young  to  endure  the 
strain  of  singing  in  public,  so  I  retired  for  two  more  years 
of  study. 

I  had  to  learn  to  act  as  well  as  to  sing,  although  acting  in 
those  days  was  not  nearly  as  important  a  part  of  an 
operatic  artist's  equipment  as  it  is  now.  It  so  happened 
that  I  never  heard  another  singer  in  any  of  the  roles  in 
which  I  have  become  famous  until  after  I  had  appeared  in 
it.  That  made  my  task  more  difficult,  but  gave  me  a 
chance  to  do  things  in  my  own  way.  For  students,  how- 
ever, nothing  is  so  important  as  hearing  and  seeing  great 
artists  as  often  .as  possible. 

By  refusing  to  sing  more  than  two  or  three  times  a  week, 
and  by  always  selecting  the  music  that  is  in  my  line  and 
that  does  not  strain  my  vocal  cords,  I  have  been  able  to 
keep  my  voice  in  good  condition  for  a  number  of  years.  I 
love  my  work,  love  the  music  I  sing,  and  that  is  one  reason 
why  the  public  likes  me.  When  I  have  to  appear  in  the 
evening  I  eat  at  two  o'clock,  and  then  not  again  till  after 
the  performance.  Unfortunately,  I  get  so  excited  that 
often  I  find  it  difficult  to  go  to  sleep;  but  I  keep  myself  in 
good  health  by  plenty  of  exercise  in  the  open  air.  My 
chief  pride  is  that  I  won  my  success  without  appealing  to 
the  galleries. 

At  her  debut  in  New  York,  Mme.  Sembrich  not  only 
sang,  but  played  a  violin  concerto  and  a  piano-forte  solo, 
and  played  them  well.  In  other  words,  she  proved  that  she 
was  a  musician  as  well  as  a  singer.  She  gave  up  playing 
the  violin  in  public  long  ago,  but  at  her  song  recitals  the 
audience  is  never  willing  to  disperse  till  after  she  has  sat 
down  at  the  piano  and  played  the  accompaniment  to  her 
singing  of  Chopin's  delightful  song,  The  Maiden^s  Wish, 


vin 

MELBA,   GARDEN,  AND  CALVfe 

Nellie  Melba 

The  British  Isles  have  given  to  the  world  some  of  the 
greatest  tenors  and  baritones,  but  no  prima  donnas  of  the 
highest  rank.  The  British  colony,  Australia,  has,  how- 
ever, come  to  the  rescue  with  Nellie  Melba,  whose  success 
as  a  lyric  and  colorature  singer  has  been  as  great  as  that  of 
Marcella  Sembrich. 

Her  maiden  name  was  Nellie  Mitchell;  her  husband's, 
Charles  Armstrong;  but  to  the  world  she  is  known  by  the 
name  she  assumed  by  way  of  suggesting  Melbourne,  near 
which  city  she  was  born  in  1859.  She  was  a  lively  girl, 
fond  of  riding  bareback  across  the  Australian  plains  or 
fishing  all  day  in  a  creek.  Both  her  parents  were  musical. 
Her  father  was  Scotch.  Her  mother,  who  was  of  Spanish 
descent,  and  from  whom,  as  Gustav  Kobb^  suggests, 
Melba  inherits  her  handsome  looks,  was  a  good  pianist; 
when  she  played,  little  Nellie  would  sometimes  hide  under 
the  piano  listening  intently.  Like  Sembrich,  she  learned 
,*as  a  child  to  play  the  piano  and  the  violin;  and  she  also 
played  the  organ  in  a  church  frequently.  When  not  busy 
at  school,  she  was  always  humming,  and  even  in  those  days 
she  attracted  attention  by  that  trill  which  subsequently 
alone  would  have  sufficed  to  make  her  famous — a  trill  that 
became  so  pure,  so  easy,  so  even,  so  subtly  graded  in  the 
increase  or  decrease  of  loudness,  that  it  has  been  the  model 
and  despair  of  her  greatest  rivals,  including  Selma  Kurz. 

238 


NELLIE  MELBA  139 

Her  vocal  organs  were,  like  Patti's,  seemingly  built  so 
that  it  was  almost  impossible  for  her  to  sing  otherwise  than 
beautifully.  As  Mabel  Wagnalls  says:  "All  things  came 
easy  to  her,  because  her  voice  never  had  to  be  placed;  her 
tones  were  jewels  already  set."  Yet  that  did  not  absolve 
her  from  the  necessity  of  working  hard  to  acquire  the  neces- 
sary fluency  and  brilliancy  of  execution.  Her  parents  were 
wealthy,  and  her  desire  to  go  on  the  stage  was  discouraged 
by  them,  so  that  it  was  not  till  after  her  marriage  that  she 
had  an  opportunity  to  do  as  she  pleased.  The  iparriage 
was  not  a  happy  one,  and  after  the  birth  of  a  son  Nellie 
returned  to  her  father's  house.  She  accompanied  him  to 
London,  and  there  she  was  heard  and  admired  at  an  enter- 
tainment. Among  those  present  was  the  wife  of  the  Austrian 
consul  at  Melbourne,  who  urged  her  to  study  with  Mme. 
Marchesi  in  Paris,  and  gave  her  a  letter  of  introduction. 

Marchesi  had  hardly  heard  her  when  she  excitedly  called 
to  her  husband:  "Salvatore,  at  last  I  have  a  star!"  She 
then  asked  the  singer:  "Are  you  serious?  Have  you  pa- 
tience?" And  when  the  young  woman  answered  "Yes," 
Marchesi  added:  "Then  if  you  will  stay  with  me  one  year 
I  will  make  of  you  something  extraordinary." 

The  eminent  German  teacher  kept  her  word  to  the  Aus- 
tralian, who,  in  Marchesi's  own  words,  "soon  became  one 
of  my  most  industrious,  pliant,  and  talented  scholars." 
At  a  musicale  in  Marchesi's  house  she  sang  the  mad  scene 
from  Hamlet  in  such  a  way  as  to  win  the  most  flattering 
praise  of  its  composer,  Ambroise  Thomas,  who  was  among 
the  guests.  This  was  in  1886;  in  the  following  year  she 
made  her  operatic  debut  at  Brussels — the  beginning  of  a 
brilliant  career,  during  which  she  has  distinguished  herself 
particularly  as  Lucia,  Gilda,  Ophelia,  Marguerite,  Juliet, 
Nedda,  Mimi,  Micaela,  and  Desdemona. 

It  has  always  been  great  fun,  for  those  who  like  that 
sort  of  sport,  to  watch  Melba  and  the  flute  player,  in  the 


I40  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

mad  scene  from  Lucia^  run  a  steeplechase  across  a  scaly 
country  full  of  dangerous  staccato  stubble  and  wide  leaps, 
or — to  change  the  figure — to  watch  the  dazzling  explosion 
of  runs,  trills,  and  staccato  rockets.  What  her  voice 
chiefly  lacks  is  warmth  and  variety  of  coloring,  but  these 
qualities  the  lovers  of  florid  song  do  not  care  for  so  much 
as  brilliant  execution.  Nor  do  they  consider  it  a  serious 
flaw  if  a  prima  donna  enunciates  indistinctly,  sacrificing 
words  to  tones.  Like  Schopenhauer,  they  rather  like  the 
"contemptuous  indifference"  with  which  Rossini,  Doni- 
zetti, and  their  singers  often  treat  the  text;  and  if  the  in- 
difference extends  to  the  action,  as  it  does  sometimes  in 
Melba's  case,  they  forgive,  and  applaud  no  less  violently.* 

Concerning  her  appearance  in  La  Traviata  in  1896,  I 
wrote:  "The  audience  saw  a  healthy,  vigorous  Australian 
prima  donna,  looking  as  fresh  as  a  rose  and  singing  like  a 
skylark.  There  was  not  a  single  tuberculous  microbe  in 
this  Violetta;  she  was  simply  an  elegantly  dressed  young 
woman  who  seemed  to  be  happy  at  first  and  more  or  less 
distressed  afterward  by  two  men,  and  then  she  suddenly 
expired,  for  no  visible  reason.  It  was  neither  sad  nor  par- 
ticularly entertaining,  and  it  showed  that  there  was,  after 
all,  an  advantage  in  the  old  indifference  of  operatic  audi- 
ences to  plots,  which  is  most  vividly  illustrated  by  the  story 
of  the  man  in  the  gallery,  in  an  Italian  opera-house,  who 
shouted:  'Great  Heavens!  the  tenor  is  murdering  the 
soprano!'  But  Mme.  Melba's  singing  atoned  for  every- 
thing." There  are  many  ways  of  winning  great  success — 
fortunately. 

This  success,  however,  in  Nellie  Melba's  case,  did  not 
come  at  once,  so  far  as  New  York  is  concerned.    In  the 

*  Mme.  Melba  knows  her  audiences,  and  she  does  not  resent  criticism 
or  banter.  I  once  asked  her  if  she  remembered  that  when  she  first  came 
to  America  I  referred  to  her  as  the  kangaroo  prima  donna.  "  Oh,"  she 
laughed,  "that  did  not  worry  me.  My  husband  used  to  be  known  as 
Kangaroo  Charlie." 


NELLIE  MELBA  141 

same  criticism  from  which  I  have  just  quoted  I  stated  that 
"the  sidewalk  speculators  were  offering  tickets  at  greatly- 
reduced  rates,  and  in  the  house  itself  there  were  rows  of 
empty  seats."  This  prima  donna  had  to  win  her  way 
slowly  in  America,  in  striking  contrast  to  Tetrazzini,  a 
decade  and  a  half  later.  The  reasons  therefor  are  given 
succinctly  in  that  invaluable  storehouse  of  information, 
Mr.  Krehbiel's  Chapters  oj  Opera:  Mme.  Melba  "did  not 
make  all  of  her  operas  effective  in  her  first  season  [1893], 
partly  because  a  large  portion  of  the  public  had  been 
weaned  away  from  the  purely  lyric  style  of  composition 
and  song,  in  which  she  excelled,  partly  because  the  dramatic 
methods  and  fascinating  personality  of  Mme.  Calv6  had 
created  a  fad  which  soon  grew  to  proportions  that  scouted 
at  reason;  partly  because  Miss  (not  Mme.)  Eames  had 
become  a  great  popular  favorite,  and  the  people  of  society, 
who  doted  on  her,  on  Jean  de  Reszke,  his  brother  Edouard, 
and  on  Lassalle,  found  all  the  artistic  bliss  of  which  they 
were  capable  in  listening  to  their  combined  voices  in  Faust. 
So  popular  had  Gounod's  opera  become  at  this  time  with 
the  patrons  of  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House,  that  my 
witty  colleague,  Mr.  W.  J.  Henderson,  sarcastically  dubbed 
it  'das  Faustspielhaus,'  in  parody  of  the  popular  title  of 
the  theatre  on  the  hill  in  the  Wagnerian  Mecca." 

Subsequently  Mme.  Melba  became  so  popular  that  she 
could  dictate  her  own  terms  and  monopolize  whatever  r61es 
she  wanted.  In  one  case,  however,  this  proved  a  disadvan- 
tage. Mme.  Sembrich  attributes  the  preservation  of  her 
vocal  powers  during  a  career  of  nearly  three  decades  to  the 
fact  that  she  always  knew  what  r61es  and  songs  were  suited 
to  her  voice,  and  avoided  the  others.  Mme.  Melba  did  not 
always  do  this,  and  for  her  mistake  on  one  occasion  she  suf- 
fered serious,  but  luckily  not  permanent,  injury  to  her  voice. 

It  was  at  the  time  when  the  De  Reszkes  were  in  New 
York  and  Wagner  was  all  the  rage,  so  that  even  Melba 


142  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

longed  to  appear  in  one  of  these  rdles  that  brought  their 
interpreters  so  much  glory,  while  Calvd  likewise  talked  as 
if  she  was  in  similar  mood.  The  Frenchwoman  refrained, 
but  the  Australian  succumbed.  One  day  Jean  de  Reszke 
suggested  to  her,  half  jocularly,  maybe,  that  she  should 
try  Briinnhilde,  in  Siegjried.  She  promptly  made  up  her 
mind  to  do  so,  and  had  a  clause  inserted  in  her  contract 
securing  that  part  for  herself.  To  sing  that  role,  one  must 
have  a  voice  pliant  and  strong  as  a  Damascus  blade. 
Melba's  was  pliant,  but  not  of  steel,  and  it  broke  in  its 
contest  with  the  Wagnerian  orchestra;  she  had  to  retire 
for  the  season  and  make  it  whole  again. 

There  were  not  wanting  critics  who  asserted  that  Wag- 
ner was  to  blame.  If  that  was  the  case,  were  Puccini  and 
Verdi  to  blame  for  the  impairment  of  Caruso's  voice  toward 
the  close  of  the  season  of  1908-9  ? 

Melba's  triumphs  at  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House 
were  even  surpassed  by  those  she  won  at  Oscar  Hammer- 
stein's  Manhattan  Opera  House,  which  her  presence 
helped  to  make  a  fashionable  resort.  What  pleased  the 
more  critical  of  her  admirers  particularly  was  that  her 
biggest  success  was  won  in  the  season  1908-9,  in  a  part 
which  her  matured  art  as  singer  and  actress  now  enabled 
her  to  assume  with  most  satisfactory  results — the  part  of 
Desdemona,  in  Verdi's  OiellOy  an  opera  which  she  actually 
succeeded  in  making  popular. 

Nellie  Melba  is  one  of  the  few  lucky  singers  whose  vocal 
gifts  came  to  her  naturally.  Yet,  as  already  intimated,  she 
was  from  her  girlhood  a  hard  worker,  practising  on  several 
instruments  besides  training  her  voice.  To  Mabel  Wag- 
nails  she  once  said:  "I  didn't  sing  much  when  a  child;  I 
only  hummed.  And,  by  the  way,  a  child's  voice  should  be 
carefully  guarded.  I  consider  the  ensemble  singing  in 
schools  as  ruinous  to  good  voices.  Each  one  tries  to 
outdo  the  other,  and  the  tender  vocal  cords  are  strained 


MARY  GARDEN  143 

and  tired.     I,  personally,  did  not  seriously  study  singing 
until  after  my  marriage  at  seventeen  years  of  age.'* 

Mary  Garden 

The  assertion  that  the  British  Isles  have  given  to  the 
world  no  woman  singer  of  the  first  rank  is  not  refuted  by 
the  remarkable  success  of  Mary  Garden.  Had  Miss 
Garden  depended  on  her  voice  alone,  or  chiefly,  she  would 
have  never  become  famous.  Her  career  is  of  interest  to 
readers  of  this  book  because  it  shows  that  an  opera  singer 
can  become  remarkably  popular  though  she  has  but  lim- 
ited vocal  powers — provided  these  are  supported  by  excep- 
tional histrionic  ability. 

Mary  Garden  is  usually  considered  an  American,  but 
she  was  born  in  Scotland  (1877).  She  was  in  America, 
however,  during  the  most  impressionable  period  of  her 
career,  from  her  sixth  year  to  her  nineteenth.  At  the  age 
of  six  her  mother  put  a  violin  into  her  hands,  and  six  years 
later  she  played  it  at  a  concert.  She  preferred  the  piano, 
however,  and  gave  five  hours  a  day  to  practising  on  it. 
Then  she  took  part  in  an  amateur  performance,  at  Chi- 
cago, of  Gilbert  and  Sullivan's  Trial  by  Jury,  made  a  hit, 
and  decided  to  go  on  the  stage.  She  was  fortunate  in  find- 
ing a  wealthy  lady,  the  wife  of  a  Chicago  merchant,  who 
advanced  $20,000  for  her  musical  education  in  Paris,  a  sum 
she  repaid  eleven  years  later,  when  it  constituted  less  than 
one-half  her  earnings  for  one  season.  For  two  years  she 
had  her  voice  trained  by  several  teachers.  At  that  time 
the  California  soprano,  Sibyl  Sanderson,  was  a  great  favor- 
ite in  Paris,  and  through  her  influence  she  got  an  oppor- 
tunity to  sing  before  the  directors  of  the  Opera-Comique, 
who  engaged  her  as  a  member  of  their  company. 

Charpentier's  Louise  was  the  success  of  that  season,  and 
Miss  Garden,  without  having  be^ii  asked  to  understudy 


144  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

the  part  of  the  heroine,  learned  it  nevertheless.  To  this 
wise  step  she  owed  her  sudden  elevation  to  fame.  The 
singer  who  had  the  part  of  Louise  became  indisposed  one 
evening  in  the  second  act,  and  the  director,  knowing  that 
Miss  Garden  had  studied  that  part,  asked  her  to  appear 
in  the  third  and  fourth  acts.  The  audience  grumbled  at 
the  announcement,  but  apprehension  changed  to  wonder 
and  delight.  Miss  Garden's  success  was  instantaneous. 
She  kept  the  role  and  sang  it  some  two  hundred  times  in 
Paris  alone. 

In  a  sketch  of  her  career  written  for  Musical  America 
(February  27,  1909),  she  says:  ''I  coached  all  my  roles 
with  the  director  of  the  Opera-Comique  after  my  engage- 
ment there,  but  I  have  never  taken  an  actual  lesson  in 
acting  in  my  life.  When  I  take  up  a  new  role  I  think, 
think,  think  it  over,  try  to  become  one  with  the  character 
I  am  to  portray,  and  gradually  one  idea  after  another 
comes  to  me.  But  I  seldom  play  a  role  twice  in  exactly  the 
same  way,  for  every  time  I  am  singing  it  some  fresh  de- 
tail, some  new  point  will  suggest  itself  to  me,  and  I  try  it. 
For  instance,  I  have  never  even  seen  the  opera  Thais. 
Everything  that  I  do  in  that  role  is  my  own  idea^arefully 
thought  out  before  being  tried." 

^^In  this  power  to  create  characters  in  her  own  personal 
way  lies  the  secret  of  her  success.  It  was  in  Thais  that  she 
made  her  American  debut,  at  the  Manhattan  Opera 
House,  on  November  25,  1907,  and  at  once  won  the  admi- 
ration of  the  audience  by  her  rare  art  of  picturesque  pos- 
ing, of  subtle  gesture,  of  facial  expression,  and  passionate 
vocal  utterance.  That  one  of  her  most  marked  traits  is 
versatility  she  showed  in  her  second  opera,  Louise^  in 
which,  instead  of  as  priestess  of  Venus,  she  appears  as  a 
plain  Parisian  working  girl,  distracted  by  the  conflicting 
emotions  of  love  and  filial  obedience.  But  it  was  in  her 
third  opera,  Pelleas  et  Melisande,  that  her  unique  art  was 


MARY  GARDEN  145 

revealed  most  strikingly.  In  this  work  declamation  dis- 
places song  and  everything  depends  on  the  ability  of  the 
artists  to  help  the  composer  and  the  librettist  to  create 
''atmosphere."  The  shadowy  unreality  of  this  opera  is 
reflected  every  moment  in  the  aspect,  the  motions,  the 
voice  of  Miss  Garden,  who  seems  as  one  acting  in  a 
dream.* 

The  most  remarkable  thing  about  Miss  Garden  is  that 
she  who,  at  the  age  of  nineteen,  went  to  Paris,  a  Scotch- 
American  girl,  unable  to  speak  a  word  of  French,  suc- 
ceeded within  a  few  years  in  entering  so  deeply  into  the 
inmost  spirit  of  French  art  as  to  win  the  unbounded  admira- 
tion of  the  critical  and  chauvinistic  Parisians.  They  for- 
got her  nationality  and  claimed  her  as  one  of  their  own. 
When  it  was  announced  that  she  was  going  back  to  Amer- 
ica there  was  consternation,  and  at  her  farewell  perform- 
ance she  had  a  tumultuous  ovation. 

Hardly  less  remarkable  was  her  achievement  in  making 
the  three  operas  referred  to  succeed  in  New  York.  They 
are  so  peculiarly  Parisian  in  their  atmosphere  that  various 
managers  had  doubted  the  wisdom  of  placing  them  before 
the  public  this  side  of  the  ocean.  In  her  second  season  at  the 
Manhattan  she  succeeded,  with  the  invaluable  assistance, 
it  is  true,  of  Maurice  Renaud,  in  winning  the  same  degree 
of  popularity  for  another  opera  of  the  Parisian  school, 
Massenet's  miracle  play.  The  Juggler  oj  Notre  Dame,  in 
which  she  who,  in  Thais,  had  appeared  as  the  physical 
embodiment  of  alluring  womanhood,  took  the  part  of  a 
young  juggler.  She  succeeded  surprisingly  in  disguising 
her  femininity  both  of  face  and  form,  and  the  tonsure, 
when  she  enters  the  monastery,  gave  the  finishing  touch. 
Had  she  worn  a  red  cloak  instead  of  a  white  one,  she  would 

*  For  a  more  detailed  analysis  of  these  three  parts,  the  reader  may  be 
referred  to  an  article  by  the  author  in  the  Century  Magazine  for  May, 
1908. 


146  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

have  looked  completely  like  Abbey's  ''  Sir  Galahad,"  espe- 
cially in  the  picture  where  Galahad  fails  to  ask  the  ques- 
tion. Miss  Garden's  eyes  had  this  lovely,  innocent,  won- 
dering look  in  them,  especially  when  M.  Renaud  was  tell- 
ing her  the  story  of  the  Christ  baby  being  hidden  from  his 
pursuers  in  the  flowering  sage. 

Miss  Garden  holds  that  in  modern  opera  a  wonderful 
voice  is  less  needed  than  peEa&nality,  temperament,  in- 
iiiiziduality;  and  her  success  shows  there  is  some  truth  in  " 
this  contenfion.  To  girls  who  have  these  qualities  she  says: 
"It  will  be  impossible  to  hide  yourself,  for  the  public  is 
always  looking  for  something  new.  But  keep  a  steady  head ; 
and  especially  is  this  necessary  after  a  first  success.  Mark 
out  a  straight  line  for  yourself,  your  career,  and  stick  to  it. 
Be  like  a  horse  with  blinders,  keeping  your  gaze  fixed  on 
your  goal,  otherwise  you  will  fail,  even  after  a  promising 
beginning. 

"No  real  talent  was  ever  allowed  to  languish  neglected 
and  unseen." 

Emma  Calve 

While  it  may  be  true  that,  as  Mary  Garden  maintains,  a 
wonderful  voice  is  less  needed  in  modern  opera  than  per- 
sonality, temperament,  individuality,  it  is  no  doubt  better 
to  have  a  wonderful  voice  too.  In  Emma  Calvd  we  find  a 
combination  of  all  these  qualities;  is  it  a  wonder  that  her 
popularity  in  New  York  was  at  one  time  so  great  that  even 
Nellie  Melba  was  unable  to  assert  herself  in  face  of  it  ? 

The  nationality  of  Emma  Calvd  is  something  of  a  puzzle. 
Her  father  was  a  Spanish  engineer,  her  mother  a  French- 
woman. Her  baptismal  name  was  Emma  Roguer;  she  was 
born  in  a  French  village,  Decazeville,  in  1866.  She  is  thus, 
like  the  opera  Carmen,  with  which  her  name  will  always  be 
inseparably  associated,  French  with  a  Spanish  complexion. 


EMMA  CALVE  147 

She  was  brought  up  almost  like  a  nun,  in  a  convent.  A 
visitor  heard  her  sing,  and  urged  her  mother  to  send  her  to 
Paris  for  a  musical  education.  Her  first  engagement  was  at 
Brussels.  Thence  she  returned  to  Paris  with  a  letter  from 
Gevaert,  Director  of  the  Brussels  Conservatoire,  to  the 
famous  German  teacher,  Mme.  Marchesi,*  in  which  the 
distinguished  Belgian  scholar  said:  ''Take  this  young 
artist  in  hand.  She  has  talent,  but  has  still  much  to  learn. 
I  fancy  her  voice  has  not  been  properly  trained.  She  has 
sung  with  some  success  in  Brussels  during  the  past  year, 
and  now  wishes  to  work  steadily  with  you." 

Marchesi  found  the  voice  of  this  pretty,  dark-eyed  girl  so 
tired  and  overworked  that  she  advised  her  to  rest  it  for 
some  time  before  beginning  her  studies.  Calv^  did  so, 
and  then  studied  for  two  years  with  Marchesi,  appearing 
subsequently  at  the  The^tre-Italien  under  the  guidance  of 
Victor  Maurel,  and  then  at  the  Op^ra-Comique.  Her 
first  real  successes  were  won,  however,  in  Italy,  at  the 
Milan  Scala.  After  her  appearance  in  Samara's  Flora 
Mirabilis  she  wrote  to  her  teacher  that  she  had  met  with 
un  succes  ires  franc,  although  her  voice  was  found  to  be 
scarcely  loud  enough  for  the  big  Milan  opera-house.  "I 
must  tell  you,  between  ourselves,"  she  adds,  ''that  I  am 
making  great  progress,  not  only  as  a  singer  but  as  an  ac- 
tress, for  I  have  worked  hard  at  my  part."  Then  came  her 
first  real  triumph,  at  the  same  theatre — her  Santuzza,  in 
Mascagni's  sensationally  successful  Cavalleria  Rusticana. 
Maurel  had  been  among  her  advisers,  and  she  had  seen  in 
the  same  part  (without  music)  the  great  Duse,  whose  sim- 
plicity and  naturalness  made  an  indelible  impression  on 
her.     After  one  of  her  appearances  in  this  r61e  in  New 

*  Marchesi's  maiden  name  was  Mathilde  Graumann,  and  she  was 
born  at  Frankfurt.  She  also  had  under  her  tuition  Melba,  Eames,  Nevada, 
Gerster,  lima  di  Murska,  Gabrielle  Krauss,  and  others  who  subsequently 
became  famous.  She  tells  about  them  in  her  book,  Marchesi  and  Music 
New  York:  Harper  &  Brothers.     1897. 


148  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

York,  when  Mascagni's  opera  was  preceded  by  Luciaj 
with  Melba,  I  wrote: 

*'It  did  not  take  the  great  French  singer  a  minute  to 
show  how  infinitely  greater  emotion  is  in  music  than  flaw- 
less technic  existing  for  its  own  sake.  No  longer  did  the 
audience  think  of  trills  and  scales  and  tone  production  and 
phrasing;  they  saw  bodily  before  them  a  poor,  betrayed 
girl,  witnessed  her  frantic  efforts  to  regain  her  faithless 
lover,  her  despair  and  revenge,  ail  revealed  most  pathetic- 
ally in  facial  expression  and  actions  that  were  nature's  own 
contributions  to  art,  while  her  singing  simply  deepened  the 
emotion,  and  it  required  a  special  effort  of  the  attention  to 
realize  how  beautiful  it  was  as  singing.  Why,  we  say  it  for 
the  tenth  time,  does  not  Mme.  Calv6  learn  some  of  the 
Wagner  r61es?  She  would  be  a  vocalist-actress  such  as 
Wagner  dreamed  of  in  his  most  Utopian  moments." 

Internationality  achieved  one  of  its  greatest  miracles  in 
the  case  of  Emma  Calvd.  Spanish  father,  French  mother, 
born  in  France,  trained  by  a  German  teacher,  first  great 
success  in  Italy — to  these  we  may  add  that  the  climax  of 
her  triumphs  came  in  America,  in  the  season  1893-4, 
when  she  sang  Carmen  fourteen  times  to  crowded  houses, 
and,  during  the  demonstration  made  at  her  farewell,  came 
forward  and  said:  "I  shall  never  forget  that  to  the  Amer- 
ican public  I  owe  the  greatest  success  of  my  career." 

It  is  said  *  that  Calv^  had  her  tomb  designed  some  years 
ago,  the  principal  feature  of  it  being  two  statues  of  herself, 
one  as  Ophelia,  the  other  as  Carmen.  She  evidently  real- 
izes as  clearly  as  her  admirers  do  that,  while  she  may  have 
achieved  notable  results  in  Faust^  Mefistofele,  La  Navar- 
raise,  Messaline,  UHerodiade,  and  other  works,  it  is  in 
Hamlet  and  Carmen  that  she  won  for  herself  a  place  in 
musical  history  as  a  creative  interpreter  without  an  equal. 

*  opera  Singers.  A  Pictorial  Souvenir.  By  Gustav  KobW.  Boston: 
Oliver  Ditson  Co. 


EMMA  CALVE  149 

There  had  been  great  Carmens  before  Calv^,  among 
them  Galli-Maride,  Pauline  Lucca,  Minnie  Hauk,  but 
Emma  Calvd  surpassed  them  all.  On  December  21,  1893, 
the  day  after  her  first  New  York  appearance,  I  said  in  the 
Evening  Post:  "Coming  from  Southern  France,  she  is  a 
neighbor  of  the  Spanish  gypsy.  .  .  .  Her  impersonation 
is  as  vivid  as  the  colors  of  a  gypsy's  garments.  Sometimes 
it  verges  on  coarseness,  but  it  is  the  coarseness  of  realism. 
.  .  .  She  does  not  hesitate  in  a  moment  of  excitement  to 
leap  the  barriers  of  tonal  beauty,  to  declaim,  even  to  speak 
where  song  would  seem  artificial.  .  .  .  Her  face,  which 
would  hardly  be  called  beautiful  when  at  rest,  becomes  so 
intensely  fascinating  in  its  constant  emotional  changes  that 
one  can  hardly  take  the  opera-glass  from  the  eyes.  Few 
rdles  present  all  the  emotions,  from  mischievous  flirtation, 
amorous  dalliance,  coaxing,  threatening,  indifference, 
scorn,  rage,  and  horror,  as  vividly  as  that  of  Carmen,  and 
all  of  them  are  mirrored  in  Mme.  Calv^'s  countenance  and 
helped  out  with  an  endless  variety  of  gestures.  Nothing 
could  have  been  truer  to  the  low-life  she  represents  than  the 
self-conscious  coquetry  with  which  she  adjusts  her  dress 
and  hair  so  as  to  look  her  best  before  the  soldiers,  just 
after  stabbing  the  cigarette  girl." 

Fifteen  years  later,  when  she  sang  Carmen  at  the  Man- 
hattan Opera  House  (March  13,  1908),  I  wrote: 

*'*She  is  universally  accepted  as  the  greatest  Carmen  of 
all  who  have  appeared  in  the  part,'  wrote  the  editor  of  the 
new  Grove  four  years  ago.  She  is  now  forty-two  years 
of  age,  yet  she  is  still  without  a  rival.  To  be  sure,  she  has 
become  too  heavy  and  matronly  to  satisfy  the  eye  in  the 
opening  scenes  of  flirtation  with  the  sergeant  Don  Jos^,  or 
in  the  dance  in  the  smuggler's  den;  but  apart  from  that, 
her  personality  as  an  actress  is  as  potent  as  ever.  Nor  has 
her  voice  grown  fat;  it  is  as  slender,  as  graceful,  as  expres- 
sive, as  capricious  as  ever.    Her  tones  are  clear  and  full, 


I50  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

luscious  in  quality,  from  the  lower  ones  that  have  the 
genuine  viola  quality  to  the  soprano  top  notes,  and  in  her 
style  there  is  inimitable  chic,  grace,  mischief,  drollery,  with 
great  intensity  and  passion  in  the  tragic  moments.  Her  song 
has  the  rare  charm  of  a  constant  improvisation;  it  seems  as 
if  the  melodies,  as  well  as  the  words  and  the  actions  were  in- 
spirations of  the  moment;  and  this  is  the  perfection  of  art. 

"The  Habanera  (which  is  a  real  old  Spanish  song)  and 
the  Seguidilla  have  seldom  been  sung  more  bewitchingly  by 
Mme.  Calve  than  they  were  last  night — in  the  true  Anda- 
lusian  style,  in  perfect  tune,  with  rare  beauty  of  tone.  In 
superb  contrast  was  the  tragic  scene  where  she  reads  her 
impending  death  in  the  cards;  the  operatic  stage  has  few 
things  as  thrilling  as  her  face  and  her  song,  at  the  words 
4a  mort.^  And  in  the  subsequent  scenes  with  the  Toreador 
and  her  discarded  lover  to  the  moment  when  she  falls  after 
Don  Jos^  has  stabbed  her,  she  is  the  same  inimitable  Calvd 
that  opera-goers  have  always  adored.  Last  night's  audi- 
ence, which  completely  filled  the  house,  was  delighted, 
moved,  thrilled,  and  there  were  many  recalls." 

The  only  serious  blemish  in  this  performance,  as  in 
others  of  preceding  years,  was  her.  refusal  to  sing  Je  faime 
Escamillo,  the  exquisite  love-song  which  is  sung  with  the 
Toreador  just  before  he  goes  into  the  bull-ring,  with  the 
rhythmic  simplicity  and  intensity  of  feeling  called  for.  It 
is  one  of  the  most  exquisite  melodies  ever  penned,  and  not 
to  sing  it  as  intended  is  an  esthetic  crime.  In  other  places, 
too,  this  capricious  prima  donna  was  inclined  to  overdo 
the  improvisational  manner,  but  not  to  the  extent  one 
would  have  supposed  from  some  of  the  newspaper  cen- 
sures. She  was  still  the  Carmen  of  Carmens.  To  hear  her 
sing  U amour,  in  the  second  act  (No.  14),  after  the  two 
other  girls,  was  to  realize  the  meaning  of  interpretative 
genius.  Jean  de  Reszke  alone  has  been  able  to  sing  and  say 
so  much  in  one  word,  as  we  shall  see  later. 


EMMA  CALVE  151 

Ophelia,  in  Ambroise  Thomas's  opera,  is  not  nearly  so 
fascinating  a  character  as  Bizet's  Carmen,  and  the  opera  as 
a  whole  is  so  commonplace  that  even  Calve  has  never  been 
able  to  make  it  popular.  Her  appearance  in  it  in  New 
York,  in  December,  1895,  was,  however,  one  of  the  mar- 
vels of  the  season.  She  entirely  transformed  the  character; 
her  Ophelia  was  not  pallid  and  languorous,  but  highly 
emotional.  She  conceived  the  part  as  that  of  a  girl  who 
has  become  insane  from  ardent  love,  and  all  is  emotional, 
even  the  florid  music.  Concerning  this  I  wrote:  *' Whoever 
has  heard  Paderewski  play  the  tenth  Liszt  Rhapsody  must 
have  noticed  what  wonderful  effects  he  produces  with  the 
glissando.  What  in  ordinary  hands  is  a  cheap  trick,  be- 
comes, under  his  hands,  so  exquisitely  dainty,  so  delicate  in 
tint  and  execution,  that  it  has  more  than  once  brought  tears 
to  my  eyes.  Tears  over  a  few  sliding  octaves  interrupted  by 
a  few  notes  of  melody  ?    Ay,  there's  the  miracle  of  genius. 

''And  Mme.  Calv6  has  done  something  similar  in  the 
mad  scene  of  Thomas's  Hamlet.  I  hate  florid  vocal  music 
fanatically,  I  detest  mad  scenes  in  particular,  and  have 
often  poured  vials  of  wrath  over  that  in  Hamlet;  but  when 
Calvd  sang  it  at  the  Metropolitan  Opera-House,  one 
esthetic  thrill  {frisson^  as  the  French  say)  chased  another 
down  my  spinal  cord.  It  was  an  absolute  revelation. 
When  Patti  or  Melba  sings  that  music,  one  admires  the 
sensuous  beauty  of  tone,  the  supple  voice,  the  fluent  execu- 
tion; but  here  was  something  higher — not  only  flawless 
technic  and  mellow  tones,  but  tones  infused  with  dramatic 
emotion.  It  was  nothing  short  of  a  miracle — something 
absolutely  new  in  vocal  music,  an  event  in  the  history  of 
that  art;  and  to  the  credit  of  the  audience  be  it  said  that  it 
recognized  this  stroke  of  genius."  * 

*  When  I  wrote  the  above  for  the  Looker-On,  I  was  not  aware  of  the 
fact  that  Lilli  Lehmann  and  some  of  the  old  Italian  singers  understood 
the  art  of  putting  soul  into  florid  song  (see  page  io8). 


152  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

Food  for  thought:  In  a  sketch  of  Calv^'s  career  printed 
in  the  Paris  Figaro,  she  is  quoted  as  saying  that  she  did  not 
become  a  real  artist  till  she  forgot  that  she  had  a  beautiful 
voice  and  thought  only  of  the  proper  expression  the  music 
demanded.  Mark  that  sentence  and  inwardly  digest,  and 
you  will  have  learned  a  secret  which  will  do  more  to  help 
you  to  success  than  a  thousand  ordinary  music  lessons. 

Concerning  Calv^'s  conception  of  the  part  of  Ophelia, 
Jules  Huret  relates  in  the  Paris  Figaro  that  it  is  based  on 
an  experience  she  had  in  Milan,  where  a  famous  alienist 
showed  her  an  English  girl  who  had  gone  insane  after 
being  deserted  by  her  lover.  In  the  words  of  the  French 
journalist,  "The  poor  girl  had  fits  of  violence,  of  anger, 
above  all,  of  terror,  of  a  dramatic  intensity.  Emma 
Calvd  took  away  with  her  a  deep  impression  made  by  this 
visit.  Since  then  she  always  sees  the  poor,  demented  creat- 
ure, offering  to  visitors  whatever  she  can  put  her  hand  on, 
and  taking  it  suddenly  away  with  anguish.  And,  in  spite 
of  herself,  whatever  she  may  do,  she  cannot  play  Ophelia 
without  seeing  herself  back  in  the  Milan  hospital." 

A  delightful  instantaneous  photograph  of  Calv^,  the 
woman  and  the  artist,  was  given  some  years  ago  in  an  in- 
terview she  had  with  the  brilliant  London  journalist,  Mr. 
De  Nevers.  When  asked  if  it  was  true,  as  reported,  that 
she  intended  to  leave  the  operatic  stage,  and  if  so,  why,  she 
answered : 

"'When  I  sing — that  is,  when  I  am  at  work — I  don't 
live.  I  must  have  plenty  of  movement  and  exercise;  I 
want  to  see  museums  and  picture  galleries;  I  want  to  talk; 
I  want  to  read ;  and  I  have  to  do  without  these  if  I  am  to  be 
in  good  voice  in  the  evening.  I  devour  books;  I  read  p^le 
meky  without  system,  but  books  are  as  indispensable  to 
me  as  nourishment.  And  if  I  am  to  be  in  singing  trim 
I  have  to  lie  still  day  after  day,  away  from  all  that  interests 
me,  away  from  books.    It  is  a  life  of  constant  sacrifice,  and 


EMMA  CALVE  153 

I  am  tired  of  it.  When  I  shall  be  on  the  dramatic  stage 
I  shall  be  able  to  indulge  all  my  favorite  occupations  in  the 
daytime,  and  my  voice,  free  of  the  cares  of  rhythm,  pitch, 
quality,  and  intensity  of  sound,  will  be  all  right  in  the 
evening.  And  I  am  not  so  selfish  after  all.  It  is  my  pride 
to  register  among  the  sacrifices  I  made  for  my  art  that 
twice  I  refused  quite  a  fortune  for  its  sake;  the  first  time 
to  create  Massenet's  Sappho  and  the  second  time,  now, 
to  keep  faith  with  Zola  and  Bruneau.  And  each  occasion 
meant  to  me  the  loss  of  my  American  engagement;  in 
other  words,  the  sacrifice  of  an  aggregate  of  ;,£4o,ooo.' 

"  ^And  now,  madam,  for  the  most  serious  of  all  reasons  ?' 
*  What  an  unbelieving  one  you  are !  But  you  are  right,  and 
I  will  tell  you  my  best  reason,  because  I  think  you  guessed 
it.  The  long  and  short  of  it  is,  I  am  at  cross  purposes  with 
my  repertory.  My  temperament,  all  my  thinking  self,  at- 
tracts me  toward  one  set  of  parts,  and  the  limitations  of  my 
voice  compel  me  to  remain  within  another  set.  Why 
haven't  I  the  voice  for  Isolde,  Briinnhilde,  Kundry,  Donna 
Anna,  Fidelio  ?  I  would  not  grumble  then  about  rhythm, 
or  conventionalism,  or  discomforts  in  every-day  life.  As 
it  is,  I  must  try  fresh  fields  in  drama.  Nobody  will  say 
I  gave  up  singing  because  singing  gave  me  up,  and  I  hope 
to  prove  in  Bruneau's  UOuragan  that  I  deserve  to  be 
trusted.  And  further,  in  attempting  to  sing  Armida,  I 
want  to  prove  I  can  sing  classic  music.  But  after  that, 
farewell  to  opera,  and  for  the  untrammelled  ways  of  mod- 
ern drama.' 

"'The  decision  is,  then,  irrevocable?'  ^Absolutely. 
Why,  you  are  whistling  La  donna  e  mobile,  par  exemple. 
After  all,  who  knows  what  may  happen  during  one  whole 
year?  .  .  .' 

"I  thought  so  all  along,"  Mr.  De  Nevers  concludes. 

Another  instructive  talk  with  Calve  is  reported  by 
Mabel  Wagnalls  in  her  Stars  of  the  Opera.    When  asked 


154  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

if  she  practised  much,  the  singer  replied:  "No — not  now. 
You  see,  I  must  have  mercy  on  my  poor  voice  and  save  it 
for  the  evenings  when  I  sing.  Formerly,  of  course,  I  prac- 
tised every  day,  but  never  more  than  an  hour  with  full 
voice.  Yes,  an  hour  at  one  time,  once  a  day,  that  is  all. 
But  I  studied  much  besides."  To  the  question:  " Did  you 
ever  hum  in  your  practice?"  she  replied  with  much  anima- 
tion:  "Yes,  and,  do  you  know,  that  is  splendid!    I  do  it 

a.  great  deal  even  yet,  especially  for  the  high  tones.  .  .  . 

I      With  Mme.  Marchesi  I  used  to  hum  a  great  deal.    Yes,  it 

j     is  an  excellent  practice,  for  it  brings  the  tone  forward  right 

I     here" — and  she  touched  the  bridge  of  her  nose.    When 

L^feer  visitor  referred  to  the  mad  scene  in  Hamlet — the  "eerie 

tone"  which  is  so  fearful  in  its  pathos  and  terror,  Calvd 

exclaimed:  "I  love  that  role!    The  mad  scene!    Ah,  it  is 

superb." 

Almost  as  fascinating  as  her  Ophelia  and  her  Carmen 
has  been  her  Marguerite,  one  more  of  those  impersona- 
tions which  showed  that,  instead  of  blindly  following 
monotonous  traditions,  she  tried  to  do  everything  her  own 
way  and  after  deep  reflection.  Even  her  errors  were  in- 
structive. For  instance,  after  the  death  of  Valentine,  at 
her  first  appearance  as  Marguerite,  in  Faust,  she  made  a 
theatrical,  horrified  exit,  showing  in  her  features  the  on- 
coming of  insanity.  This  in  itself  was  an  effective  touch, 
but  it  distracted  the  attention  of  the  audience  from  the 
exquisite  and  deeply  moving  pianissimo  strains  of  the 
kneeling  chorus.  I  called  her  attention  to  this,  and  she 
modified  her  action  at  subsequent  performances.  Her  song 
and  action  were  thrilling  in  the  church  and  prison  scenes. 
In  the  Faust  tragedy  Goethe  has  accomplished  the  miracle 
of  making  us  feel  the  absolute  innocence  of  a  girl  who  is 
guilty  of  unlawful  love  and  responsible  for  the  death  of  her 
mother,  brother,  and  child;  and  when  this  miracle  is 
heightened  by  such  music  as  Gounod  has  written  for  it, 


EMMA  CALVE  155 

and  such  acting  and  singing  as  Mme.  Calve's,  one  feels 
assured  that  opera  is  not  only  the  highest  form  of  music, 
but  of  all  art,  let  croakers  say  what  they  will  about  the  un- 
realism  of  singing  a  tragedy. 


IX 

THREE  AMERICAN  SOPRANOS 
Lillian  Nordica 

Lillian  Norton  is  the  real  name  of  the  singer  who  has 
become  world-famed  as  Lillian  Nordica.  She  called  her- 
self Lillian  Nordica  at  the  suggestion  of  her  Italian  teacher, 
Sangiovanni,  at  the  time  when  she  entered  on  her  operatic 
career;  and  she  did  this  not  because  of  the  old  custom  of 
adopting  Italian  names  for  stage  purposes  but  because  she 
had  received  letters  from  home  intimating  that  she  would 
disgrace  the  family  name  by  bringing  it  into  the  theatre. 
There  were  stern  clergymen  among  her  ancestors  on  the 
mother's  side,  and  her  father,  too,  had  suffered  from  Puri- 
tan views  regarding  amusements;  he  was  not  allowed  to 
bring  his  violin  home  because  it  was  looked  upon  as  an 
instrument  of  the  devil. 

"Nordica,"  which  means  "from  the  North,"  not  only 
made  a  musical  stage  name,  it  also  calls  attention  to  the 
fact  that  the  North  as  well  as  the  South  produces  beautiful 
voices.  Jenny  Lind  and  Christine  Nilsson  were  natives  of 
Sweden.  Lillian  Norton  was  born  in  Maine,  and  so  was 
Annie  Louise  Cary.  Emma  Eames  happened  to  be  bom 
in  Shanghai,  China,  but  her  parents  were  good  Americans 
from  Maine,  and  it  was  at  Bath  that  Emma  passed  her 
childhood.  Geraldine  Farrar  was  born  near  Boston,  but 
her  ancestors  came  from  South  Paris,  Maine. 

Farmington  was  Lillian  Norton's  birthplace.  She  had 
five  sisters,  one  of  whom  died  when  she  was  a  girl  of  seven- 

156 


LILLIAN  NORDICA  157 

teen.  The  others  are  still  living;  on  April  25,  1909, 1  had 
the  pleasure  of  being  present  at  a  family  reunion  when  the 
five  sisters  were  together  at  Ardsley-on-the- Hudson,  where 
Mme.  Nordica  intends  to  build  a  Wagner  Theatre  and  to 
teach  when  her  operatic  career  is  over.  While  riding  along 
the  river  in  her  automobile,  with  the  superb  Palisades  in 
view,  she  told  me  the  story  of  her  life. 

The  sister  who  died  had  a  promising  voice,  and  to  give 
her  a  chance  to  cultivate  it  the  family  moved  to  Boston. 
After  her  early  death  the  family  hopes  were  focussed  on 
Lillian.  Her  teacher  was  an  Irishman  named  John 
O'Neill,  who  had  carefully  studied  voice  culture  and  had 
some  sensible  ideas.  He  insisted  on  her  devoting  three 
years  to  technical  exercises,  and  one  day,  when  she  offered 
to  sing  Dove  sono,  he  simply  laughed  at  her.  Her  first 
solos  she  sang  in  church,  and  she  also  appeared  as  soloist 
in  a  choir  organized  by  Eben  Tourgee.  From  the  very 
beginning,  her  high  C  had  attracted  attention,  and  it  was 
because  of  this  that  the  Tourgee  Choir  sometimes  sang  the 
Inflammatus  from  Rossini's  Stabat  Mater,  which  con- 
tinued for  three  decades  to  be  a  performance  that  always 
filled  the  house  to  overflowing  wherever  this  soloist  hap- 
pened to  sing  it.  When  she  was  seventeen  she  had  the 
honor  of  having  assigned  to  her  some  of  the  airs  in  the 
Messiah  at  a  performance  of  this  oratorio  given  by  the 
Handel  and  Haydn  Society,  of  Boston,  in  the  Music  Hall. 

Recalling  those  early  days,  Mme.  Nordica  dwelt  with 
particular  joy  on  one  privilege  she  enjoyed  in  regard  to  that 
Music  Hall  when  she  began  her  lessons  at  the  New  Eng- 
land Conservatory.  At  that  time  the  conservatory  was  in 
the  same  building  as  the  concert  hall,  but  separated  from 
it  by  a  grating.  Being  a  wee,  slender  girl,  Lillian  found 
that  she  could  squeeze  through  this  grating  and  thus  get  to 
where  she  could  hear  the  rehearsals  and  performances 
going  on  in  the  Music  Hall.    She  was  very  careful  not  to 


158  "^     SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

tell  anybody  about  this  convenient  arrangement  lest  some 
one  might  mar  it. 

When  Tietjens  came  to  America,  Lillian  asked  permis- 
sion to  sing  for  her.  The  prima  donna  informed  her  she 
had  no  time  to  hear  her,  but  that  she  might  sing  for  her 
niece.  Lillian  did  so,  and  Tietjens,  who  was  in  the  ad- 
joining room,  presently  came  in,  asked  her  to  sing  an  air 
from  //  Trovatore,  and  gave  her  some  tickets  for  the  opera. 
She  advised  her  to  go  to  New  York  and  study  with  Mme. 
Maretzek.  Lillian  did  so,  and  in  one  summer  learned  with 
her  the  scores  of  a  dozen  operas. 

It  was  through  Mme.  Maretzek  that  the  little  girl  from 
Maine  became  acquainted  with  the  eminent  bandmaster, 
Patrick  Gilmore.  She  sang  for  him  Ah  non  giunge,  from 
Sonnambula,  and  See  the  Bright  Seraphim,  with  Arbuckle 
playing  the  cornet  obbligato,  and  was  promptly  engaged  as 
a  soloist  for  a  Western  tour.  Besides  expenses  for  herself 
and  her  mother,  she  got  $100  a  week,  which  then  seemed 
a  big  sum  to  one  who,  not  many  years  later,  commanded 
$1,500  a  night  as  an  opera  singer. 

About  this  time  she  received  a  letter  from  her  teacher, 
Mr.  O'Neill,  reproaching  her  with  joining  a  brass  band 
when  he  had  had  such  high  aspirations  for  her.  But  Lil- 
lian had  these  same  high  aspirations;  from  the  beginning 
she  had  dreamed  of  becoming  an  opera  singer;  but  the 
tour  with  the  brass  band  gave  her  a  chance  to  earn  a  little 
money  and  to  get  some  experience  in  singing  before  the 
public,  two  things  not  to  be  despised. 

Gilmore  was  so  well  satisfied  with  the  American  suc- 
cesses of  his  young  soprano  that  he  took  her  to  England, 
where  she  appeared  at  seventy-eight  concerts,  singing 
twice  a  day.  This  was  in  1878,  the  year  of  the  Exposition 
in  Paris,  which  became  the  next  place  to  be  visited  by  the 
band.  Lillian  Norton  had  the  honor  of  being  the  first 
singer  to  be  heard  in  the  new  Trocaddro.    While  in  Paris 


LILLIAN  NORDICA  159 

she  took  some  American  pupils,  and  then,  realizing  that 
she  herself  ought  to  be  still  a  pupil,  went  to  Italy  and  took 
lessons  of  Sangiovanni,  asking  him  to  prepare  her  for  the 
operatic  stage. 

Had  she  remained  in  England  she  would  have  become 
an  oratorio  and  concert  singer,  in  accordance  with  the 
wishes  of  her  parents  and  teacher.  But  her  heart  was  set 
on  opera,  and  after  studying  for  some  months  with  San- 
giovanni, she  got  an  engagement  for  the  season  at  Brescia, 
where  she  made  her  debut  in  La  Traviata.  Four  times  a 
week  she  had  to  sing  there,  and  her  emoluments  for  three 
months  amounted  to  $100  plus  a  benefit  performance, 
which  yielded  $60  more.  It  was  at  this  time  that  she 
changed  her  name  to  Nordica. 

In  1880  she  secured  an  engagement  at  St.  Petersburg 
which  was  renewed  the  next  season.  Among  the  Russian 
incidents  she  remembers  most  vividly  is  a  note  written  by 
Mme.  Tolstoy  after  a  performance  of  Figaro  in  which 
Nordica  had  taken  the  part  of  the  mischievous  page, 
Cherubino.  It  read:  "My  dear  boy,  come  and  take  tea 
with  us  girls.    Bring  your  doll." 

By  this  time  her  fame  as  an  opera  singer  had  reached 
Paris  and  she  got  an  engagement  at  the  Grand  Opera,  at 
that  time  the  goal  of  all  artists.  There  she  sang  eighteen 
months.  Two  of  her  parts  were  the  heroines  of  Faust  and 
Hamlety  which  she  had  the  great  advantage  of  studying 
with  the  composers,  Gounod  and  Thomas.  Having  mar- 
ried Frederick  A.  Gower,  she  retired  from  the  stage;  but 
her  husband  lost  his  life  in  an  attempt  to  cross  the  English 
Channel  in  a  balloon,  and  in  1885  she  resumed  her  oper- 
atic career. 

One  of  her  earliest  appearances  in  America  was  at  the 
Academy  of  Music  on  November  26,  1883,  in  Faust. 
"She  sings  with  feeling,  but  acts  with  more,"  wrote  Mr. 
Krehbiel.    "Her  voice  has  more  soul  than  body,"  I  wrote, 


i6o  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

adding  that  it  was  "sweet  and  sympathetic,"  and  that  the 
highest  tones  were  the  best.  On  March  12,  1887,  she 
made  her  debut  at  Covent  Garden,  London,  ''with  instant 
success,"  wrote  Mr.  Alexis  Chitty,  "on  account  of  the 
purity  of  her  style  and  the  richness  and  roundness  of  her 
upper  register."  Thenceforth  the  adjectives  applied  to 
her  voice  by  critics  of  various  countries  were  such  as  would 
have  delighted  Patti:  "the  silvery  lyric  quality  which  won 
for  her  such  renown";  "her  mellow,  pure,  expressive 
voice";  "...  when  to  these  we  add  her  magnificent 
physique,  her  eloquence  of  face  and  gesture,  and  her  rich, 
glowing,  thrilling  voice,  can  we  wonder  that  she  suc- 
ceeded?" 

When  Augustus  Harris  organized  a  rival  company  at 
Drury  Lane,  with  Jean  and  Edouard  de  Reszke,  Mapleson 
succumbed  and  Mme.  Nordica  applied  to  Harris  for  an 
engagement.  He  informed  her  he  had  all  the  singers  he 
needed,  but  agreed,  after  Mr.  Mancinelli,  the  eminent 
conductor,  had  taken  him  aside  for  a  moment,  to  hold  her 
in  reserve  and,  in  case  he  needed  her,  to  give  her  $200  for 
each  appearance.  The  women  of  the  company  proving 
less  satisfactory  than  the  men,  she  was  sent  for  on  the 
second  night  of  the  season.  Without  a  rehearsal  she  sang 
Aida,  and  she  learned  the  difficult  part  of  Valentine  {Les 
Huguenots)  in  a  week. 

For  the  next  six  seasons  she  was  a  regular  member  of 
the  Harris  company  at  Covent  Garden.  "She  also  sang," 
says  Alexis  Chitty,  "with  much  success  in  concerts  at  the 
Crystal  Palace,  in  oratorio  at  Albert  Hall  and  St.  James's 
Hall  [Novello  concerts],  the  Handel  and  provincial  festi- 
vals, and  other  concerts."  On  one  occasion,  Mme.  Albani 
having  been  taken  ill,  Mme.  Nordica  took  her  part  in  the 
Golden  Legend.  Sir  Arthur  Sullivan  was  greatly  annoyed 
when  he  heard  of  the  substitution,  but  the  day  after  the 
performance  he  called  on  the  young  American  and  thanked 


LILLIAN  NORDICA  i6i 

her  for  having  sung  his  music  "so  beautifully,"  as  Gustav 
Kobbe  relates  in  his  Opera  Singers. 

Up  to  this  time  Mme.  Nordica  had  appeared  chiefly  in 
Italian  and  French  operas.  She  sang  florid  music  brill- 
iantly, sustained  melody  with  luscious  beauty  of  tone  and 
great  charm  of  phrasing.  Some  of  her  rdles,  like  A'ida  and 
Valentine,  revealed  also  great  dramatic  power,  and  it  was 
in  this  direction  that  her  development  thenceforth  chiefly 
lay.  In  1892  she  studied  Venus,  in  Tannhduser,  with  Mme. 
Cosima  Wagner,  who  engaged  her  to  sing  Elsa,  in  Lohen- 
grin, at  the  next  Bayreuth  Festival — an  unprecedented 
honor  for  an  American.  The  rehearsals  took  up  three 
months,  and  during  this  time  the  American  became  deeply 
imbued  with  the  Wagnerian  spirit  of  thoroughness  and 
attention  to  details  which  characterizes  the  Bayreuth  per- 
formances.* 

American  lovers  of  Wagner's  music  soon  benefited  by 
this  new  phase  of  her  art.  In  1895  she  added  to  her  reper- 
tory, at  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House,  Isolde,  Venus,  and 
Elsa  in  German.  It  was  a  time  of  great  Wagner  enthu- 
siasm in  New  York,  on  the  part  of  the  singers  as  well  as 
the  audiences.  Anton  Seidl,  who  had  been  Wagner's 
assistant  for  five  years,  and  in  whom  he  had  greater  con- 
fidence than  in  any  other  conductor,  co-operated  with  the 
De  Reszke  brothers,  Nordica,  Lilli  Lehmann,  and  others  in 
trying  to  give  performances  of  his  music-dramas  approxi- 
mating from  year  to  year  nearer  to  the  composer's  ideal. 
The  artists  rehearsed  with  him,  and  these  were  the  most 
valuable  lessons  Nordica  ever  had  in  the  art  of  dramatic 
singing  and  interpretation.  "I  shall  never  forget  how 
deeply  Anton  Seidl  was  moved,"  she  once  said  to  Mr. 
Kobb^.    "  We  all  felt  that  we  were  starting  out  on  this  new 

♦On  June  6,  1896,  Mme.  Wagner  wrote  to  Anton  Seidl:  "I  am  glad 
to  hear  from  you  so  many  good  things  about  Madame  Nordica.  The 
hours  devoted  to  her  studying  of  the  role  of  Elsa  with  me  are  among 
my  pleasant  reminiscences." 


i62  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

race  side  by  side,  with  every  nerve  and  every  thought  on  the 
alert.  But  it  was  a  great  strain.  Seidl  came  to  me  early 
one  morning  to  go  over  my  role  with  me,  and  he  left  me 
about  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  having  gone  over  the 
acting  to  the  minutest  detail.  I  had  to  rest  for  two  days. 
Every  noise,  every  sound  brought  up  something  from 
Tristan  and  Isolde,^* 

Interesting  reminiscences  of  these  studies  with  Seidl, 
which  did  so  much  to  help  her  to  rise  to  the  first  rank  as  a 
Wagnerian  vocalist  and  actress,  were  written  by  her  for 
the  Anton  Seidl  memorial  volume,  published  in  1899  with 
contributions  from  other  great  artists.  Even  in  the  days 
when  her  voice  was  light,  she  relates,  Seidl  used  often  to 
say  to  her:  "  Wait,  you  will  sing  Wagner  one  of  these  days." 
He  was  always  on  the  lookout  for  beautiful  young  voices 
which  he  hoped  to  consecrate  to  the  cause  he  worshipped. 

"When  I  did,"  Mme.  Nordica  continues,  "and  began  to 
study  the  r61e  of  Venus,  it  was  Mr.  Seidl  who  taught  it  to 
me.  Again,  it  was  Mr.  Seidl  who  aided  me  in  the  first  study 
of  Elsa  for  Bayreuth,  an  aid  of  such  authority,  enthusiasm, 
and  assurance  that  il  laid  a  foundation  oj  ftUure  purpose 
and  determination. 

"  He  could  act  out  every  part  in  the  music-dramas,  and 
his  exactness  extended  to  the  multitude  of  details  accepted 
as  minor,  but  of  such  importance.  One  day,  after  devoting 
three  hours  of  his  time  to  me,  going  over  the  score  of  Tristan^ 
we  went  to  a  Broadway  store  to  buy  a  veil  for  Isolde  in  the 
second  act.  He  asked  for  samples  of  various  kinds  of 
tulle,  and  when  they  came  he  seized  one  after  another  at 
one  end  and  flirted  the  other  rapidly  through  the  air,  to 
the  great  astonishment  of  the  shoppers  and  shop-girls,  who 
were  not  quite  sure  whether  he  was  in  his  right  mind.  But 
he  knew  just  what  he  wanted.* 

*  This  veil  is  used  in  the  garden  scene  by  Isolde,  who  waves  it  on  the 
steps  more  and  more  excitedly  as  her  lover  approaches. 


LILLIAN  NORDICA  163 

"With  the  quenching  of  the  torch  he  was  just  as  insistent 
that  it  should  be  thrust  into  water  and  not  sand,  to  prevent 
the  spreading  of  the  flames  from  escaping  alcohol.  His 
devotion  to  his  work  in  these  details  was  inexhaustible.  .  .  . 
In  encouragement  he  was  always  ready  with  those  earnest 
in  their  strivings,  and  his  knowledge  was  at  their  disposal, 
a  knowledge  that  meant  to  so  many  a  help  to  advancement 
in  their  art."  * 

Under  such  guidance  Mme.  Nordica's  impersonations 
grew  more  and  more  dramatic  and  poetic.  "Never  was 
there  a  more  conscientious  artist,"  I  wrote  after  one  of  her 
appearances  as  Elsa,  "  or  one  more  eager  to  seize  every  hint 
given  by  the  composer,  in  libretto,  score,  essay,  or  letter — 
subtle  touches,  mostly,  but  such  as  add  very  much  to  the 
picturesqueness  of  her  impersonation.  She  has  brought 
some  effective  details  from  Bayreuth,  too,  and  does  not 
keep  them  for  herself,  but  makes  them  extend  to  her  en- 
vironment." 

After  hearing  her  Isolde  in  London,  the  well-known 
song- writer,  Sebastian  Schlesinger,  wrote:  "How  Nordica 
has  mastered  the  German  language,  of  which  she  knew 
nothing  a  little  while  ago,  is  wonderful;  her  enunciation  is 
perfect,  and  as  she  'knows  how  to  sing'  her  fatigue  of 
voice  is  very  little — physical  fatigue  after  a  long  mental 
strain  must  of  course  follow.  While  we  have  many  singers 
whose  high  registers  call  forth  our  warmest  admiration,  we 
have  few,  and  with  the  exception  of  Lilli  Lehmann  I  know 
none,  whose  mezza  voce  is  as  fine  as  Mme.  Nordica's.    It 

*  The  Seidl  volume  from  which  these  citations  are  made  contains  many 
invaluable  hints  for  those  who  wish  to  succeed  as  operatic  or  concert 
conductors.  Seidl  was  loved  by  all  who  worked  with  him,  feared  and 
admired  by  those  who  played  under  him.  He  achieved  greater  results 
than  any  other  operatic  conductor.  Confidence  is  half  the  battle  for  a 
singer,  and,  as  Jean  and  Edouard  de  Reszke  wrote  in  the  Seidl  book, 
"the  artists  had  only  to  look  at  his  authoritative  glance  and  inspiring 
beat  to  gain  absolute  confidence,  and  feel  that  they  would  be  ably  steered 
through  any  diflBculty  that  might  arise." 


1 64  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

has  great  carrying  power,  and  she  uses  it  a  great  deal  more 
in  this  r61e  than  other  singers  do,  so  that  her  interpretation  in 
this  respect  will  be  quite  different  from  other  singers',  like 
Rose  Sucher,  who,  great  as  she  is  dramatically,  has  evidently 
not  had  that  vocal  instruction  which  makes  the  voice  bieg- 
sam,  or  bel  canto,  and  this  is  required  for  the  ideal  Isolde." 
•  What  this  means  was  shown  at  the  time  when  the  first 
Wagner  festival  was  given  at  the  specially  built  Prinz- 
Regenten  Theater,  in  Munich.  Nordica  was  one  of  the 
artists  engaged,  and  the  leading  journals  declared  that  for 
once  the  role  of  Isolde  was  actually  sung  in  that  Wagnerian 
town.  James  Huneker,  who  happened  to  be  present,  wrote 
in  the  Musical  Courier  that  "Nordica  rather  startled  the 
natives  by  her  artistic  singing.  Her  Isolde  is  a  familiar 
assumption  to  us,  but  for  Munich  it  seemed  a  revelation. 
I  suppose  the  fact  that  a  woman  could  sing  the  music  with- 
out howling  off -pitch  provoked  both  wonderment  and  en- 
thusiasm. ...  I  have  heard  her  give  the  Liebestod  with 
more  volume,  though  never  with  such  sorrowful  tenderness. 
.  .  .  The  enthusiasm  was  great  over  Nordica  and  Frem- 
stad  (Brangane).  It  was  decidedly  a  red-letter  day  for 
American  singers." 

Lillian  Nordica  helped  to  irreparably  damage  two 
myths:  one,  that  devotion  to  Wagner's  music  ruins  a  voice 
prematurely,  or  at  least  unfits  it  for  other  styles  of  song; 
the  other,  that  dramatic  singing  and  bel  canto  are  abso- 
lutely distinct  and  incompatible.  Like  Lilli  Lehmann,  she 
began  her  stage  career  as  a  light  soprano  with  a  bird-like 
voice;  and,  like  that  German  singer,  she  retained  her  ability 
to  sing  lyric  roles,  with  or  without  colorature,  after  she  had 
become  pre-eminent  as  Isolde  and  Briinnhilde.  Once  she 
helped  Mr.  Grau  out  of  a  scrape  at  Washington  by  singing 
Traviata  at  a  moment's  notice;  and  at  the  age  of  fifty  she 
sings  the  lyric  rdles  as  well  as  she  does  the  dramatic.  Of 
her  Marguerite,  I  wrote  in  1903: 


LILLIAN  NORDICA  165 

"Marguerite  does  not  require  such  a  sonorous  voice  as 
Brunnhilde;  accordingly,  Mme.  Nordica  attuned  her  tone- 
volume  to  the  part,  revealing  the  full  strength  of  her  organ 
only  in  the  church  scene  and  the  final  trio.  This  showed 
not  only  good  judgment,  but  superlative  control  of  her 
vocal  technic.  She  sang  the  jewel  song  happily,  the 
spinning  song  sentimentally,  the  church  scene  with  an 
agony  of  remorse  and  despair  seldom  witnessed  on  the 
stage.  And  while,  in  singing  Wagner,  she  always  makes 
noble  use  of  the  hel  canto,  so  here,  conversely,  she  infused 
the  charms  of  the  dramatic  style  into  Gounod's  broad 
melodies.  The  text  was  enunciated  with  surprising  clear- 
ness and  the  phrasing  most  tasteful.  In  her  action  there 
were  many  new  details,  and  her  conception  of  the  part  was 
quite  properly  that  of  Goethe  rather  than  that  of  Gounod's 
French  librettists.  In  a  word,  she  infused  a  hackneyed 
part  with  fresh  interest,  and  the  audience  recalled  her,  with 
Mr.  Alvarez  and  Mr.  E.  de  Reszke,  numberless  times  after 
the  acts." 

"Go  and  hear  Mme.  Nordica,"  I  wrote  on  a  later  occa- 
sion, "in  Italian  music,  and  then  bear  in  mind  that  she 
has  made  a  specialty  of  Wagner  ever  since  the  days  of 
Anton  Seidl,  and  you  will  realize  that  Wagner,  properly 
sung,  strengthens  and  beautifies  the  voice.  ...  To  critical 
ears  it  is  inexpressibly  soothing  to  listen  to  a  voice  like  this 
— a  voice  always  produced  without  effort,  always  luscious, 
always  true  to  the  pitch,  and  at  the  same  time  imbued  with 
the  deepest  feeling;  a  voice  which  shows  that  Wagner's 
most  difficult  intervals  (which  great  artists  a  few  decades 
ago  considered  unsingable)  can  be  made  as  smooth  and 
flowing  as  Mozart's  cantilena;  a  voice  which  had  a  glorious 
mountain  freshness  in  it  when  it  sang  the  opening  lines  of 
Gdtterd'dmmerung,  Zu  neuen  Thaten,  and  retained  that 
freshness  till  she  uttered  the  last  words,  Selig  gilt  dir  mein 
Gruss,  after  four  hours  of  the  most  exhausting  song  and 


1 66  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

action."  And  how  her  final  high  C  in  Siegjried  always 
thrilled  the  audience!  Lilli  Lehmann  alone  could  equal 
her  in  that. 

Lillian  Nordica,  like  Lilli  Lehmann,  has  had  the  ad- 
vantage of  great  beauty  of  face  and  form.  It  was  only 
one  of  many  assets,  to  be  sure,  but  it  had  its  value. 
Never  was  this  beauty  more  admired  than  on  the  occa- 
sion when  it  was  set  off  by  the  diamond  tiara  presented 
by  her  friends.    Concerning  this  occasion  I  wrote: 

"  It  was  the  greatest  event,  the  most  triumphal  occasion 
in  her  career.  After  the  first  act,  when  the  curtain  had 
been  raised  repeatedly  in  response  to  tumultuous  applause, 
a  number  of  baskets  of  flowers  were  handed  up  to  her,  and 
in  one  of  them  was  a  casket  containing  a  large  jewel-case. 
This  M.  Jean  de  Reszke  gave  to  the  prima  donna,  who 
opened  it  and  displayed  the  much-talked-of  tiara  with  the 
233  diamonds,  that  was  made  for  America's  greatest  singer 
with  the  contributions  of  128  of  her  admirers,  including  the 
names  of  many  leading  society  people.  It  is  a  tribute  to 
genius  such  as  few  singers  have  ever  received.  On  the 
front  page  of  the  parchment  book  containing  the  names  of 
the  donors  the  following  is  written: 

"  To  Mme.  Nordica: 

''  We  beg  your  acceptance  of  the  accompanying  ornament 
as  a  token  of  regard  from  some  of  your  friends  and  ad- 
mirers, and  in  recognition  of  your  deserved  artistic  success, 
of  which,  as  your  compatriots,  we  are  justly  proud. 

"Fraulein  Olitzka — who  was  an  impassioned  Ortrud 
— helped  to  put  the  tiara  on  Mme.  Nordica's  head,  while 
the  curtain  was  raised  for  a  moment  so  that  the  audience 
had  an  opportunity  to  see  how  becoming  it  was.  She  did 
not  need  the  ornament,  however,  for  she  was  a  most  lovely 
Elsa  unadorned.  .  .  .  One  could  feel  that  her  mastery  of 


LILLIAN   NORDICA  167 

the  difficult  r61e  of  Isolde  had  made  Elsa  comparatively 
easy  to  her.  Talk  of  Tristan  ruining  the  voices  of  singers! 
If  all  singers'  voices  could  be  as  delightfully  ruined  as 
Mme.  Nordica's  and  Jean  de  Reszke's  have  been,  the 
musical  millennium  would  be  at  hand.  .  .  .  Had  Wagner 
been  present  last  evening  he  would  perhaps  have  felt  that, 
as  he  named  his  love-drama  Tristan  and  Isolde,  so  he 
ought  to  have  called  his  first  Grail  opera  Lohengrin  and 
Elsar 

With  all  her  advantages  of  beauty  of  person  and  voice, 
opportunities  for  training  and  for  singing  on  the  concert 
and  operatic  stage,  Lillian  Nordica  would  not  have  suc- 
ceeded as  she  did  but  for  the  intelligence,  the  energy,  and 
will  power  she  inherited  from  her  clergy  and  soldier  ances- 
tors. "The  embodiment  of  beauty,  strength,  courage, 
energy,  and  animation,"  one  critic  called  her,  and  she  her- 
self incessantly  emphasizes  the  fact  that  wprk  means  suc- 
^ess.  She  learned  slowly,  but  persevered  till  she  knew, 
and  some  of  her  best  chances  came  to  her  through  being 
prepared  when  called  upon. 

Mr.  William  Armstrong  once  wrote:  "Mme.  Nor- 
dica has  been  to  me  a  most  interesting  example  of  success 
through  unstinted  and  unyielding  work  and  sheer  force 
of  energy  and  will.  She  herself  once  said  to  me,  in  speak- 
ing of  the  relative  successes  with  and  without  work:  'If 
you  work  five  minutes,  you  succeed  five  minutes'  worth; 
.if  you  work  five  hours,  you  succeed  five  hours'  worth. 
Plenty j^  she  added,  ^have  natural  voices  equal  to  mine, 
plenty  have  talent  equal  to  mine,  but  I  have  worked.'" 

That  is  the  most  important  lesson  in  this  whole  book 
for  those  who  would  win  great  success  in  music.  Students 
will  do  well  also  to  memorize  these  maxims  uttered  by 
Mme.  Nordica  during  the  automobile  ride  referred  to  at 
the  beginning  of  this  sketch:  "The  first  great  step  is  to 
allow  some  one  to  tell  you  when  you  are  wrong."     "To 


1 68  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

acquire  the  art  of  singing  well,  you  must  hear  it,  have  it 
demonstrated  to  you."  "Don't  try  to  begin  at  the  Met- 
ropolitan." 

Two  months  before  her  fiftieth  birthday,  Mme.  Nordica 
gave  a  recital  in  Carnegie  Hall,  New  York,  which  showed 
her  to  be  in  her  very  prime,  and  emphasized  the  fact  that 
as  an  interpreter  of  art-songs  she  occupies  as  high  a  rank 
as  among  opera  singers.  A  few  excerpts  from  my  criticism 
of  this  concert  help  to  explain  her  undiminished  success 
with  the  public.  "Often  as  Schumann's  Nussbaum  has 
been  sung  here,  she  made  it  marvellously  interesting  by 
the  sentiment  she  infused  into  this  story  of  the  leaves 
whispering  about  the  maiden  who  dreamed,  awake,  of  her 
lover  and  the  wedding  to  come  till  she  fell  asleep  and 
dreamed  again.  This  is  usually  sung  monotonously,  like 
the  whispering  of  the  leaves.  Mme.  Nordica  emphasized 
the  human  side  (the  heart-story)  and  made  a  new  song  of 
it  that  made  one  sit  up  and  listen.  Her  art  has  indeed 
ripened!  .  .  .  Here  is  the  true  bel  canto,  allied  with  Ger- 
man sentiment.  .  .  .  Bizet's  Vieille  Chanson  gave  her  a 
chance  to  show  that  she  has  command  of  a  smooth  and 
effective  trill  which  quite  stirred  the  audience.  Care 
Selve,  an  air  from  Handel's  Atalanta,  was  sung  in  the  true 
grand  style,  which  Lilli  Lehmann  alone  was  supposed  to 
possess.  There  was  'school'  in  that  rendering!  ...  By 
her  dramatic  intensity,  which  now  and  then  thrills  one's 
every  fibre,  Mme.  Nordica  reminds  one  of  Dr.  Wiillner, 
but  a  Wiillner  with  a  voice  of  velvet  and  a  finished  art  of 
vocalization.  She  still  has  full  command  of  her  breath, 
as  was  shown  in  her  climaxes,  and  still  more  in  her  floating 
pianissimos,  such  as  no  other  singer  now  on  the  stage  has 
at  command,  and  which  would  be  impossible  with  im- 
paired breathing  power." 

About  a  week  later  she  showed  that  she  was  still  the 
greatest  of  all  Wagnerian  sopranos,  by  singing  the  GdUer- 


EMMA  EAMES  169 

ddmmerung  finale  with  the  New  York  Symphony  Orches- 
tra with  an  opulence  and  lusciousness  of  tone  and  an 
emotional  fervor  that  w^re  simply  thrilling.  ''What 
golden  purity  of  tone  and  intonation!"  I  wrote.  *'How 
exquisite  the  pianissimo  of  the  line  Ruhe^  ruhe,  du  Gottl 
Here  was  the  true  Briinnhilde  voice — the  voix  de  soleil, 
the  voice  full  of  sunshine,  and  at  the  end  of  exultation  at 
the  thought  of  rejoining  Siegfried." 

Emma  Eames 

"  I  am  looking  for  a  Juliet.  Has  your  wife  one  ?  If  so, 
please  ask  her  to  bring  her  to  me.  She  will  find  me  at 
home  to-morrow  at  eleven  o'clock." 

These  words  were  addressed  by  the  composer  Gounod 
to  the  husband  of  the  famous  singing  teacher,  Mme. 
Marchesi,  who  relates  in  her  book,  M archest  and  Music: 
"Well,  next  day  we  went  to  Gounod's  house  in  the  Place 
Malesherbes,  M.  Mangin  going  with  us  as  accompanist, 
and  when  we  arrived  we  found  all  his  family  assembled  to 
hear  the  new  Juliet.  That  morning  Miss  Eames  sang 
several  airs  from  the  opera  in  question  very  successfully, 
and,  greatly  delighted,  the  master  exclaimed,  'Here  is  my 
Juliet.'  A  few  days  later  he  made  her  rehearse  her  part 
in  my  presence,  Mangin  accompanying  on  the  piano,  and 
Gounod  himself  giving  her  the  cue,  singing  and  playing 
the  part  of  Romeo  from  beginning  to  end.  Then,  after 
a  rehearsal  at  the  Grand  Opera,  Emma  Eames's  en- 
gagement was  signed.  .  .  .  Miss  Emma  Eames  made 
her  first  appearance  on  the  13th  of  March,  1889.  The 
entire  Paris  press  sang  her  praises  next  day,  and  the 
American  colony,  which  had  been  largely  represented  at 
her  debut,  were  naturally  quite  proud  of  their  young 
countrywoman — not  without  reason  either,  for  it  is  seldom 
that  a    foreigner  who   has  studied    in  a  private  school. 


I70  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

passes  directly  to  the  stage  of  the  Grand  Op^ra  in  the 
French  capital.  But  the  young  artist  was  also  eminently 
fortunate  in  having  the  assistance  of  Jean  de  Reszke,  the 
most  celebrated  tenor  of  the  day  at  that  time." 

When  this  happened,  Emma  Eames  was  only  twenty- 
one  years  old.  She  had  travelled  a  long  distance  to  reach 
Paris  —  all  the  way  from  Shanghai,  China,  where  her 
parents  happened  to  be  at  the  time  she  was  bom,  via 
Maine,  where  she  spent  her  childhood  (at  Bath)  with  her 
grandparents.  Her  mother  taught  singing  in  Portland, 
and  to  her  she_went  twice  a  week  to  take  lessons,  begin- 
ning with  her  fifteenth  year,  her  mother  holding,  properly, 
that  it  was  unwise  to  let  a  girl  begin  sooner.  Then  she  was 
sent  to  Boston  to  continue  her  studies  with  Miss  Munger 
and  to  breathe  a  musical  atmosphere.  Here  she  had  the 
good  luck  to  become  a  protegee  of  Professor  Paine,  of  Har- 
vard, who  gave  a  series  of  lectures  on  old  church  music 
which  she  helped  to  illustrate  with  her  lovely  voice.  To 
this  experience,  and  the  subsequent  counsels  of  Professor 
Paine,  Miss  Eames  owed  much  of  her  future  success;  it 
gave  her  a  taste  for  classical  music  and  helped  to  make 
her  a  great  Mozart  singer  in  particular. 

Ere  long  she  had  made  sufficient  progress  to  appear  at 
a  concert  of  the  Boston  Symphony  Orchestra.  A  church 
position  was  also  found  for  her.  **  She  became  very  pop- 
ular," Mr.  Kobbd  relates,  "but  she  did  not  realize  this 
until  many  years  later,  when  she  returned  to  Boston  to 
I  sing  in  opera.  She  was  then  told  by  members  of  the  con- 
gregation that  whenever  it  was  known  that  she  was  to 
sing,  there  always  had  been  several  hundred  people  more 
in  church  than  on  other  occasions.  *I  never  imagined 
until  then  that  the  crowd  was  for  me,'  she  remarked  with 
delightful  naivetd,  in  telling  me  about  it." 

After  three  years  in  Boston  she  went  to  Paris.  Before 
she  made,  the  brilliant  ddbut  already  referred  to  she  had 


EMMA  EAMES  171 

suffered  disappointments  and  been  the  victim  of  some  of 
the  intrigues  which  seem  inseparable  from  stage  life;  but 
after  that  debut  everything  was  smooth  sailing.  For  two 
years  she  remained  at  the  Op^ra,  of  which  she  was  the 
chief  ornament,  in  every  sense  of  the  word,  the  first  of 
several  "American  beauties"  who  won  the  hearts  of  the 
Parisians.  In  April,  1891,  she  made  her  London  d^but, 
and  "at  once  established  herself  as  a  favorite  with  the 
more  musical  part  of  the  public,  who  appreciated  the  re- 
finement of  her  style  and  the  beauty  and  accuracy  of  her 
phrasing,"  in  the  words  of  Mr.  Fuller  Maitland,  who 
adds  that  her  "middle  notes  have  a  timbre  that  is  gener- 
ally associated  with  mezzo-sopranos,  and  the  higher  notes 
are  produced  with  such  ease  and  flexibility  as  to  make  her 
execution  of  florid  passages  always  delightful  to  listen  to." 

Her  first  appearance  in  America  was  made  at  the  Metro- 
politan Opera  House,  in  December,  1891,  where  she  at 
once  justified  her  European  reputation.  The  opera  was 
Romeo  and  Juliet,  and  with  her  in  the  cast  were  Jean  and 
Edouard  de  Reszke.  Other  operas  in  which  she  excelled 
were  Faust,  Otello,  Falstaff,  Cavalleria  Rusticana;  and  it 
was  largely  owing  to  her  that  Alda  at  last  began  to  be 
appreciated  as  the  best  of  all  Italian  operas.  Her  voice, 
without  losing  any  of  its  beauty,  gradually  became  more 
expressive,  her  style  more  dramatic.  Lovers  of  Wagner's 
operas  were  delighted  with  her  Elsa,  her  Elizabeth,  her 
Eva,  her  Sieglinde,  all  of  which  she  invested  with  rare  charm. 

In  this  phase  of  her  art  she  owed  much  to  Anton  Seidl. 
"He  it  was,"  she  says  in  the  Seidl  memorial  volume, 
"that  urged  me  to  study  the  role  of  Sieglinde.  He  said  it 
was  a  'good  bridge'  between  Wagner's  lyric  and  his  heav- 
ier dramatic  parts."  She  saw  Seidl  the  last  time  in  August, 
1907.  He  had  taken  her  to  see  and  sing  for  Frau  Wagner. 
"  Mr.  Seidl  wheedled  me  into  doing  so,  so  gently  that  be- 
fore  I  knew  it  I  was  singing,"  she  remarks. 


172  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

In  all  probability,  had  Seidl  lived,  he  would  have  piloted 
Emma  Eames,  as  he  did  Lillian  Nordica,  to  the  highest 
summits  of  Wagnerian  art.  Without  this  guidance  and 
stimulus,  her  dramatic  progress  was  arrested  at  this  point, 
to  the  grief  of  many  of  her  admirers,  who  had  expected 
great  things  of  her  Isolde  and  Briinnhilde.  She  partly 
atoned  for  this  disappointment  by  her  splendidly  subtle 
and  dramatic  Tosca. 

None  of  her  impersonations  will  live  longer  in  the  memory 
of  opera-goers  than  her  Countess,  in  the  Marriage  of  Figaro. 
When  she  sang  the  "letter  duo"  with  Sembrich,  the  two 
voices  blended  so  marvellously  that  it  was  difficult  to  tell 
which  of  the  two^happened  to  be  in  the  lead  for  the  moment. 

At  one  time  in  her  career  it  was  often  said  that  while  her 
singing  was  beautiful,  it  was  lacking  in  warmth.  Doubt- 
less, at  that  time,  it  did  give  that  impression,  but  this  was 
not  due  to  a  lack  of  temperament  but  to  defects  in  her 
vocal  technic  which  she  gradually  overcame.  ''I  used  to 
be  accused  of  coldness,"  she  said  to  a  writer  for  the  New 
York  Times  in  1897,  ''but  it  was  simply  restraint.  I  did 
not  dare  to  sing  with  abandon  because  I  was  not  sure  of 
myself.  Now  I  am,  and  the  result  is  that  critics  say  I  dis- 
play greater  warmth  and  breadth  of  style." 

Emma  Eames  is  every  inch  an  aristocrat,  and  is  there- 
fore at  her  best,  as  an  actress,  in  those  parts  in  which  she 
represents  a  lady  of  high  birth.  As  Santuzza  she  was 
accused,  with  some  reason,  of  being  "too  fine  a  lady."  In 
this  she  resembles  Jenny  Lind,  who  was  at  her  best  only 
in  roles  which  harmonized  with  her  personal  traits. 

When  she  first  sang  in  New  York,  Anton  Seidl  (who 
subsequently  became  so  great  an  admirer  of  her  art) 
criticised  her  severely  in  a  magazine  article  for  making  the 
village  girl  Marguerite  a  grande  dame  in  mien  and  dress. 
She  mended  all  that  later,  and  became  particularly  famous 
for  the  appropriateness  as  well  as  the  beauty  of  her  cos- 


EMMA  EAMES  173 

tumes.  In  the  devising  of  these  she  had  the  valuable  aid 
of  her  husband,  Julian  Story,  the  well-known  portrait- 
painter.  Her  Aida — young,  graceful,  lithe,  and  pictu- 
resquely attired — would  have  inspired  Titian. 

She  acknowledged  having  received  valuable  assistance 
from  Victor  Maurel  while  both  were  members  of  the 
Metropolitan  company.  To  Mabel  Wagnalls  she  said: 
"I  have  never  done  anything  in  my  life  but  work.  I  cared 
for  other  pleasures  just  as  any  girl  does,  but  have  always 
foregone  them." 

Of  her  health  she  is  very  careful.  "If  by  any  chance  I 
forget  a  word  on  the  stage  I  know  my  health  is  run  down, 
and  I  then  at  once  take  a  rest  for  several  days."  She  told 
me  once  that  the  fumes  of  tobacco  simply  paralyzed  her 
throat,  and  she  therefore  always  makes  sure  that  no  one  is 
smoking  near  her  when  she  goes  on  the  stage.  I  have 
known  few  women  as  intelligent,  as  well-informed,  as 
entertaining  as  Emma  Eames.  Nor  is  she  afraid  of  any- 
body— not  even  the  critics.  Once  she  said  to  a  reporter: 
"What  do  the  critics  know  about  the  proper  way  to  sing? 
I  know  more  of  the  art  of  singing  than  the  whole  lot. 
Haven't  I  given  my  life  to  the  study  and  practice  of  it?" 

For  years  she  spent  her  free  months  near  Florence,  Italy, 
where  she  lived  in  a  picturesque  castle  resembling  a  tower. 
Concerning  this  life  she  said  that  "the  health  gained  when, 
clad  in  my  short  skirt  and  shirt-waist,  a  good  stout  stick 
in  my  hand  and  hobnailed  boots  on  my  feet,  I  climbed  the 
mountains  near  our  Italian  home,  helps  me  all  through  the 
season  of  work,  makes  the  struggle  easier,  because  I  needn't 
take  time  to  look  after  my  physical  well-being." 

There  are,  however,  ailments  that  resist  all  hygienic 
measures,  and  it  was  because  of  such  that  Mme.  Eames 
retired  from  the  operatic  stage  in  February,  1909,  just 
twenty  years  after  her  Parisian  debut.  She  sang  Tosca  at 
the  Metropolitan  and  received  an  ovation  which  must  have 


174  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

warmed  her  heart.  In  response  she  said :  ''This  is  good-by. 
Whatever  is  good  in  me  you  have  brought  out.  You  have 
been  very  exacting  and  have  insisted  always  on  the  best 
that  is  in  me.  In  the  eighteen  years  that  I  have  sung  here 
I  have  endeavored  to  give  you  my  best.  My  love  I  leave 
you.     Good-by." 

Twenty  years  is  altogether  too  short  a  time  for  an 
operatic  career,  especially  when  an  artist  is  still  in  her 
prime.  I  felt  sure,  therefore,  that  I  voiced  the  feelings  of 
thousands  when  I  expressed  the  hope  that  her  retirement 
was  only  temporary,  and  that  she  would  go  to  Patti  and 
take  lessons  in  the  art  of — perennial  farewelling. 

Geraldine  Farrar 

In  the  Horace  Mann  School  at  Melrose,  Mass.,  there  is 
an  "honor  desk,"  so  called  not  so  much  because  it  is  now 
assigned  to  the  pupil  who  has  received  the  highest  marks, 
as  because  at  this  desk  there  used  to  sit,  until  1895,  a  little 
girl  known  as  Gerry  Farrar.  In  the  last  week  of  January, 
1908,  the  two  hundred  pupils  of  the  school,  with  flags  in 
hand,  waved  their  welcome  to  this  same  girl,  who  had  in 
this  short  time  succeeded  in  becoming  one  of  the  idols  of 
the  operatic  stage,  first  in  Berlin  and  Monte  Carlo,  then 
in  Paris,  Stockholm,  and  New  York,  where  she  was  earn- 
ing a  thousand  dollars  for  an  evening's  work. 

But  it  was  not  only  this  school  that  was  excited  over  the 
presence  of  the  famous  young  prima  donna.  The  whole 
town  rose  to  the  occasion,  making  this  the  most  memorable 
day  in  its  history.  Many  came  from  Boston,  Maiden,  and 
other  places  to  hear  the  songs  she  was  to  sing  in  the  town 
hall,  which  was  patriotically  draped  with  flags  in  honor 
of  the  *'  American  Jenny  Lind."  The  leading  officials  were 
present,  and  after  the  concert  Miss  Farrar  shook  hands 
with  more  than  a  thousand  admirers  and  old  friends  and 
schoolmates. 


GERALDINE  FARRAR  175 

Such  a  "home-coming"  has  been  granted  to  few  artists; 
yet  it  was  not  unexpected.  In  May,  1895,  ^^^  Melrose 
Journal  had  spoken  of  her  as  having  a  voice  of  great  power 
and  richness,  adding  that  *'she  is  only  thirteen  years  of 
age,  but  has  a  future  of  great  promise,  and  it  is  believed 
that  Melrose  will  some  day  be  proud  of  her  attainments  in 
the  world  of  music."  In  the  following  year  the  Boston 
Times  referred  to  her  as  "a  young  girl  who  has  a  phe- 
nomenal voice  and  gives  promise  of  being  a  great  singer." 
Already  at  that  time  she  "won  the  hearts  of  the  audience" 
— an  achievement  of  which  this  most  winsome  of  prima 
donnas  has  since  made  a  specialty. 

So  far  as  such  a  thing  can  be  inherited,  Geraldine  Farrar 
got  her  voice  from  both  her  parents.  Her  mother  was  a 
good  singer  and  had  thoughts  of  the  stage,  but  gave  up 
these  plans  because  she  married  when  she  was  only  seven- 
teen. Her  husband,  Sidney  Farrar,  sang  for  some  years  in 
the  choir  of  the  Universalist  Church  of  Melrose.  He 
owned  a  retail  store  in  that  city,  but  cared  less  for  business 
than  for  sport,  so  he  left  the  store  in  charge  of  a  clerk  and 
became  a  member  of  the  Philadelphia  Base-Ball  Club, 
which  owed  many  a  victory  to  him;  he  "never  missed  a 
ball,"  so  it  was  said. 

Geraldine's  favorite  amusement  as  a  child  was  to  "play 
opera  singer."  When  she  was  seven  years  old  her  mother 
secured  a  piano  teacher  for  her,  but  the  child  refused  to 
practise  because  she  found  the  exercises  monotonous. 
After  she  had  had  twenty  lessons  it  was  decided  that  it 
would  be  better  to  wait  until  she  was  old  enough  to  make 
use  of  her  opportunities. 

In  an  article  which  appeared  in  Putnam's  Monthly  for 
May,  1908,  Emily  M.  Burbank  relates: 

Miss  Farrar  says  that  it  was  not  until  she  had  seriously 
begun  to  have  her  voice  trained  for  opera  that  she  learned 


176  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

the  value  and  necessity  of  concentration  and  routine  work. 
As  a  child  she  could  sing  anything  she  heard,  and  played 
"opera  singer"  by  the  hour  after  being  taken  to  hear  one 
or  two  operettas  in  Boston.  The  year  that  her  daughter 
was  twelve,  Mrs.  Farrar  subscribed  for  seats  at  the  matinee 
performances  of  grand  opera  given  in  Boston  by  the  Savage 
company.  Geraldine's  first  opera  was  Faust,  with  Ma- 
dame Calv^  as  Marguerite.  After  that  she  had  but  one 
idea — to  be  a  singer  of  grand  opera  herself.  Scores  were 
bought  and  fearlessly  approached;  arias  were  picked  out 
and  attempted;  and  she  harmonized  chords  in  the  bass 
with  the  melodies,  showing  a  skill  and  a  sense  of  harmony 
astonishing  to  those  who  heard  her.  That  year  she  sang 
Mignon's  song,  Kennst  Du  das  Land,  at  a  concert  at  the 
Melrose  church — sang  it  badly,  but  with  feeling  and  in- 
dividuality. A  few  weeks  later  she  repeated  it  at  a  charity 
concert  given  in  Mechanics'  Hall,  Boston.  That  was  her 
first  "professional"  engagement;  and  she  received  ten 
dollars  for  it.  She  had  begun  to  study  that  winter  with  a 
Boston  teacher. 

This  teacher  was  Mrs.  J.  H.  Long.  When  Geraldine 
was  fourteen  she  sang  for  Jean  de  Reszke.  Melba  heard 
her  two  years  later,  and  was  so  much  pleased  that  she 
hugged  her  and  predicted  that  a  great  future  awaited  her. 
Nordica  also  became  interested  in  her  career,  and  she  was 
persuaded  to  go  to  New  York  to  continue  her  lessons  in 
various  needful  branches.  She  studied  with  Victor  Capoul 
(dramatic  action) ,  Mrs.  Milward  Adams  (grace  and  poise) , 
and  Cornelia  Dyas  (piano).  Once  she  sang  The  Star- 
Spangled  Banner  at  the  White  House  for  President  and 
Mrs.  McKinley  just  after  a  historic  telegram  had  been 
received  from  Admiral  Dewey  in  the  Philippines. 

Before  leaving  Boston,  Geraldine  had  already  received 
an  offer  for  operatic  work  from  Mr.  Charles  A.  Ellis. 
After  two  years  of  further  training  she  received  an  offer 
from  Maurice  Grau  after  he  had  heard  her  sing  Connais 


GERALDINE  FARRAR  177 

tu  le  pays  privately  at  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House. 
Fortunately  it  was  decided  that  she  was  still  too  young 
and  had  better  go  abroad  to  continue  her  training.  The 
means  for  this  were  advanced  by  Mrs.  Bertram  Webb,  of 
Boston.  Accompanied  by  her  parents,  she  went  first  to 
Paris,  where  she  took  lessons  for  a  short  time.  Had  she 
remained,  she  might  have  easily  duplicated  t-he  Parisian 
triumphs  of  Emma  Eames  and  other  Americans.  But  her 
star  was  destined  to  rise  elsewhere. 

One  interesting  incident  occurred  in  Paris,  an  incident 
which  shows  that  the  young  singer  possessed  that  assurance 
in  regard  to  her  future  which  is  a  valuable  weapon  in  the 
battle  of  life.  She  went  to  .a  famous  photographer  and 
asked  to  have  her  picture  taken  at  professional  rates.  He 
objected,  on  the  ground  that  she  was  unknown.  Her  an- 
swer was:  "I  am  not  famous  now,  but  I  am  going  to  be 
famous." 

The  prediction  was  soon  fulfilled.  Realizing  that  she 
was  not  getting  what  she  wanted,  she  decided  to  try  Ger- 
many and  went  to  Berlin,  where  she  studied  with  Lilli 
Lehmann.  It  was  the  wisest  thing  she  could  have  done; 
the  greatest  dra-matic  soprano  of  the  time  prepared  her 
for  the  stage,  and,  at  the  age  of  nineteen,  she  sang  Mar- 
guerite at  the  Royal  Opera,  where  she  won  such  a  sensa- 
tional success  that  she  was  promptly  engaged  for  three 
years. 

When  she  first  went  to  Germany  she  had  not  overcome 
a  prejudice  she  had  long  felt  against  the  language  of  that 
country,  and  at  the  time  of  her  debut  at  the  Royal  Opera 
she  had  not  sufficiently  mastered  it  to  sing  Marguerite  in 
German.  She  insisted  on  doing  it  in  Italian,  and,  con- 
trary to  all  precedent,  was  allowed  to  do  so.  Other  operas 
were  sung  in  the  same  polyglot  fashion,  which  everybody 
was  glad  to  condone  because  of  her  personal  beauty,  the 
loveliness  of  her  voice,  with  the  morning  dew  still  on  it, 


178  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

and  the  rare  charm  of  her  acting.  Soon  she  became  the  idol 
of  opera-goers  in  the  German  capital.  The  house  was 
never  so  full  as  when  she  sang,  and  she  exerted  her  fasci- 
nation over  women  and  men  alike.  The  matinee  girls 
crowded  around  her  as  if  she  were  a  victorious  tenor,  and 
sometimes  the  police  had  to  be  summoned  to  preserve 
order.  Stories  were  circulated  about  infatuated  men; 
about  the  Crown  Prince  wanting  to  abdicate  so  he  could 
marry  her.  The  American  girl  was  reported  to  have  sung 
to  him,  " Du  bist  verriickt,  mein  Kind,  du  bist  aus  Berlin" 
— and  the  saucy  thing  was  quite  capable  of  it.  To  a  friend 
who  asked  her  how  much  truth  there  was  in  all  these 
stories,  she  replied,  with  a  sly  wink:  "They  were  good 
for  advertising  purposes,  anyway."    Always  American! 

It  is  very  seldom  that  youthful  roles  like  Marguerite, 
Juliet,  Mignon,  Elizabeth,  Cherubino,  Manon,  Violetta 
are  taken  by  artists  who  not  only  can  sing  and  act  well  but 
who  are  young  and  beautiful  at  the  same  time.  Is  it  a 
wonder  that  when  it  was  announced  that  Geraldine  Farrar 
was  to  leave,  to  join  the  Metropolitan  company  in  New 
York,  there  was  consternation  in  Berlin  ? 

Rumors  had  reached  New  York  occasionally  of  a  young 
American  of  marvellous  beauty  of  person  and  voice  and 
rare  histrionic  gifts  who  was  enrapturing  the  coldly  critical 
public  of  Berlin  two  or  three  times  a  week.  It  also  became 
known,  however,  that  that  Americamaniac,  the  German 
Emperor,  .and  his  family,  had  taken  a  special  interest  in 
the  young  singer  from  across  the  ocean,  and  often  invited 
her  to  the  royal  household.  That  explained  it!  What  the 
Kaiser  liked,  the  Berliners,  of  course,  all  must  like!  But 
do  they  ?  The  Kaiser  prefers  Gluck  to  Wagner,  but  Ber- 
lin has  twenty  performances  of  Wagner's  operas  to  one  of 
Gluck's.  Moreover,  Miss  Farrar  had  sung  in  other  cities. 
She  had,  in  the  summer  of  1906,  taken  part  in  the  Mozart 
festival  at  Salzburg,  where  her  Zerlina  was  marvelled  at 


GERALDINE  FARRAR 


179 


as  an  achievement  unequalled  since  the  days  of  Pauline 
Lucca.  Saint-Saens,  it  was  reported,  nearly  fell  out  of 
his  box  in  his  eagerness  to  applaud  this  artist.  A  large 
supply  of  her  photographs  had  been  sent  to  local  dealers; 
they  were  all  gone  in  a  few  hours  after  she  had  been  seen 
on  the  stage.  Then  she  sang  at  the  Wagner  festival  in 
Munich.  Same  result;  and  the  critics,  always  unfriendly 
to  American  singers,  confessed  themselves  enchanted  for 
once.  Her  Wagnerian  Elizabeth  was  lauded  as  highly  as 
her  Mozartian  Zerlina  had  been  in  Salzburg. 

The  final  ordeal  had  still  to  be  passed.  How  would  she 
be  received  at  home,  before  a  Metropolitan  audience 
accustomed  to  the  best  and  the  highest-priced  vocalists 
the  world  affords?  The  answer  was  given  on  November 
26,  1906,  when  Mr.  Conried  opened  the  opera  season  with 
Gounod's  Romeo  et  Juliette.  The  house  was  packed  from 
parquet  to  ceiling,  and  after  Miss  Farrar  had  sung  the 
valse  song  there  was  an  outburst  of  applause  so  cordial,  so 
prolonged,  that  she  must  have  felt  as  if  she  was  still  among 
her  Berlin  admirers.  It  gave  her  confidence;  up  to  that 
point  she  had  sung  some  phrases  slightly  above  the  pitch; 
thenceforth  she  was  herself,  and  one  could  unreservedly 
admire  and  enjoy  her  singing. 

I  wrote  the  next  day:  "She  has  ...  a  voice  of  rare 
beauty,  of  an  agreeable  brunette  timbre;  a  voice  that 
speaks  to  the  heart.  It  is  a  voice  not  suited  for  colorature 
— for  which  let  us  be  duly  grateful;  it  is  already  of  a 
dramatic  cast,  and  it  will  probably  become  more  pro- 
nouncedly so  from  year  to  year,  like  the  voices  of  her  illus- 
trious colleagues,  Lillian  Nordica  and  Emma  Fames.  In 
quality.  Miss  Farrar's  voice  not  infrequently  recalls  Mme. 
Eames's,  and  she  has  rare  skill  and  instinctive  felicity  in 
coloring  that  voice  to  suit  the  momentary  mood.  Gounod, 
with  his  passion  for  expression,  would  have  adored  this 
Juliet. 


i8o  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

"She  was  a  Juliet  to  the  eye,  too — suggesting  the  dark- 
haired,  dark-eyed  Verona  girl  of  fourteen  as  she  seldom 
has  been  suggested  either  in  the  opera-house  or  the  theatre; 
indeed,  the  opinion  was  expressed  by  many  that  Juliet  had 
never  been  impersonated  here  so  realistically  and  artis- 
tically by  any  actress  who  was  not  also  a  singer  but  able  to 
concentrate  all  her  attention  on  the  play.  Her  facial  ex- 
pression is  as  fascinating,  as  subtle,  as  varied,  as  fitful  as 
Calvd's;  every  note  of  the  score  is  mirrored  in  those  lovely 
features.  The  smile  of  youth  was  ever  on  her  face  in  the 
early  scenes  of  happiness;  solemn  and  demure  she  knelt 
during  the  marriage  ceremony;  exquisitely  girlish  was  her 
gesture  as  she  gave  the  Friar  her  hand  to  be  placed  in 
Romeo's;  the  love  scenes  were  marked  by  delightful  im- 
pulsiveness; and  in  the  final  scene  of  agony,  in  the  tomb, 
she  was  like  a  broken  flower;  it  was  tragic  realism  of  the 
highest  type. 

"  Many  were  the  recalls  after  the  several  acts,  and  Miss 
Farrar's  father,  the  famous  base-ball  expert,  who  was 
present,  must  have  felt  pleased  to  see  that  his  daughter, 
too,  could  make  a  'home  run.'" 

What  pleased  the  connoisseurs  particularly  in  this  im- 
personation was  the  evidence  it  gave  that  Miss  Farrar  was 
not  a  mere  imitator  of  what  others  had  done,  but  an  artist 
able  to  interpret  the  play  and  the  music  in  her  own  way. 
This  was  shown  in  all  the  operas  in  which  she  appeared. 
Her  Marguerite  proved  to  be  different  from  that  of  all 
others  who  had  appeared  in  Faust;  beside  Caruso  and 
Scotti,  she  looked  wonderfully  dainty,  small,  and  fragile; 
but  contrasted  with  the  hideous,  black,  Mephistophelian 
shape  of  Chaliapine,  she  seemed  almost  like  a  child.  Her 
lovely  face  was  not  that  of  a  child,  however.  In  spite  of 
its  youth  and  innocence,  it  was  filled  with  the  most  intense 
suffering  which  a  woman  can  bear.  The  strained  terror 
in  her  eyes  as  she  felt  the  evil  power  of  Mephistopheles 


GERALDINE  FARRAR  i8i 

and  her  self-abasement,  with  its  pitiful  plea  for  mercy 
and  consolation,  were  most  moving.  In  other  and  hap- 
pier scenes  she  had  a  thousand  new  touches,  always  un- 
expected and  nearly  always  beautifully  fitting;  and  she 
varied  her  play  from  performance  to  performance,  as 
Paderewski  varies  his  interpretation  of  a  Chopin  or  Schu- 
mann composition. 

As  Marguerite,  Miss  Farrar  makes  the  audience  sym- 
pathize every  moment  with  her  joys  or  woes.  Saint- Saens 
relates  that  Gounod  sang  his  own  melodies  with  an  inten- 
sity of  expression  that  no  singer  on  the  stage  could  equal 
— but  when  he  wrote  this,  he  had  not  yet  heard  Miss 
Farrar.  How  simple  and  girlish  her  joy,  in  voice  and  ac- 
tion, over  the  jewels!  How  pensive  her  Thule  ballad! 
How  intense  her  love  in  the  garden;  how  agonizing  her 
remorse  in  church;  how  true  to  life  her  horror  at  the 
demon;  how  pathetic  her  insanity  in  the  prison!  Ger- 
aldine  Farrar  has  all  the  qualities  that  made  Emma 
Calve,  in  her  best  years,  so  fascinating.  She  resembles 
Calve,  among  other  things,  in  her  constant  attentiveness 
to  details— to  the  trifles  which  make  perfection.*  And, 
like  Calve,  she  is  always  acting  and  life-like  even  when 
not,  for  the  moment,  the  centre  of  dramatic  interest. 

Verdi's  La  Traviata  has  been  characterized  by  Mr. 
Streatfeild  as  an  opera  ''chiefly  employed  now  as  a  means 
of  allowing  a  popular  prima  donna  to  display  her  high 
notes  and  her  diamonds."  Miss  Farrar  does  not  treat  it 
that  way.  She  makes  even  her  costumes  subserve  the  in- 
terest of  art,  instead  of  simply  flaunting  them  for  effect, 
like  top  notes.  Like  Sembrich,  she  practically  eliminates 
the  demi-mondaine  aspect  of  the  character;  and  like 
Nilsson,  "she  seemed  to  die,  not  of  phthisis  aided  and 

*  One  of  these  "  trifles  "  is,  in  La  Boheme,  her  kissing  the  Httle  cap 
which  reminds  her  of  happier  days,  the  small  belonging  bringing  home 
to  her  the  sweet  yet  sad  memories  as  animate  things  rarely  do. 


i82  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

developed  by  dissipation,  but  of  a  broken  heart."  Unlike 
Patti,  she  does  not  throw  champagne  about  the  stage,  but 
there  is  champagne  in  her  voice  when  she  sings  the  bac- 
chanalian Lihiamo.  Nor  does  she,  like  Patti  and  some 
other  singers,  cough  in  the  last  scene  in  an  attempt  at  real- 
ism which  is  foolish  in  view  of  the  fact  that  she  has  to  sing 
in  the  same  scene  with  the  full  power  of  her  lungs.  Being 
allowed  at  the  Metropolitan,  as  in  Berlin,  to  suggest  de- 
tails of  stage-management,  she  gives  the  death-bed  scene 
features  which  pleasantly  subordinate  the  pathological 
aspect;  the  face  of  the  sufferer,  as  she  lies  on  the  couch, 
is  suffused  with  a  rosy  hue  by  the  light  from  the  open  fire 
and  the  lamp  near  her  head.  Subsequently,  as  she  sits 
with  her  lover  on  the  sofa  for  a  few  more  happy  moments, 
her  face  has  the  pathetic  beauty  of  a  Botticelli  Venus. 

An  amazing  contrast  to  this  pathetic  Violetta  is  pre- 
sented by  her  Cherubino,  in  The  Marriage  oj  Figaro^  one 
of  the  most  delectable  of  her  impersonations.  When 
Geraldine  Farrar  assumes  a  new  role  she  presents  pictures 
which  remain  in  the  memory  indelibly.  One  of  these  is 
at  the  moment  when  the  cover  is  removed  and  she  is  seen 
coiled  up  on  the  chair  with  an  expression  in  her  face  in 
which  half  a  dozen  emotions  are  amusingly  commingled. 
And  how  drolly  awkward  this  Cherubino  looks  "dis- 
guised" in  a  woman's  attire,  walking  all  over  her  dress! 
Her  associates,  in  1908-9,  were  Marcella  Sembrich  and 
Emma  Eames.  These  three  women  enjoyed  the  fun  of 
the  plot  as  much  as  anybody,  and  therein  largely  lay  the 
secret  of  the  extraordinary  success  of  this  opera  in  that 
season.  Enthusiasm  is  contagious.  Let  us  recall  the 
words  of  Hanslick:  "  Carlotta  Patti  longs  for  the  day  when 
she  will  not  be  obliged  to  sing  any  more.  To  her  sister 
Adelina  singing  and  acting  are  among  the  necessaries  of 
life,  and  such  impassioned  artistic  natures  soon  gain  a 
magnetic  influence  over  the  public." 


GERALDINE  FARRAR  183 

To  Geraldine  Farrar  the  stage  is  quite  as  real  as  life  off 
the  stage,  and  therein  lies  one  secret  of  her  power  to  elec- 
trify audiences.  Her  Zerlina,  in  Don  Giovanni,  is  another 
illustration.  Reference  was  made  to  her  fascinating  im- 
personation of  this  character  at  Salzburg,  which  made  the 
whole  Austrian  and  German  press  echo  her  praise.  In 
New  York,  too,  she  gave  her  whole  soul  to  her  task  and 
was  duly  rewarded.  Some  thought  she  over-acted;  but  is 
it  not  quite  natural  for  a  girl  in  Zerlina's  situation  to  over- 
act in  the  exuberant  outpouring  of  her  feelings  ?  She  is  a 
country  girl  engaged  to  a  good-natured,  jealous  yokel 
who  is  in  every  way  her  inferior.  She  is  a  flirt,  too,  much 
pleased  with  the  attentions  of  so  noble  and  elegant  a  cav- 
alier as  Don  Giovanni.  She  suspects  that  his  intentions 
are  not  honorable,  but,  after  the  fashion  of  flirts,  she  plays 
with  the  fire.  It  is  a  conception  of  the  part  entirely  borne 
out  by  the  text  as  well  as  the  music.  She  imparts  an  airy 
•grace  to  the  Giovinette,  a  coquettish  charm  to  the  concil- 
iatory Baili,  hatti,  sincere  feeling  to  the  Vedrai  Carina. 

Mignon  is  another  of  her  fascinating  impersonations. 
As  she  creeps  from  the  cart  at  the  bidding  of  her  cruel 
gypsy  master  she  looks  like  a  terrified  little  waif,  all  the 
more  forlorn  for  her  tawdry  spangled  dancing  dress.  She 
is  so  pitifully  frightened  one  feels  like  jumping  on  the 
stage  to  ward  off  the  blows.  It  would  be  difficult  to  decide 
whether  she  looked  more  lovely  as  the  gypsy,  the  page  in 
boy's  clothes,  or  the  sweet  jeune  fille  in  Filina's  gown,  with 
a  rose  in  her  hair,  or  in  the  last  act,  where  she  is,  indeed,  a 
typical  beauty  from  the  land  where  the  citron  and  the 
orange  bloom. 

An  invaluable  gift  to  an  opera  singer  is  such  personal 
beauty  and  charm.  Countless  pictures  have  been  taken  of 
Geraldine  Farrar  in  diverse  attitudes  in  her  various  rdles, 
and  with  these  one  can  easily  make  up  an  album  of  a 
hundred  pictures,  many  of  which  are  so  unlike  that  it 


i84  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

seems  impossible  they  should  be  of  the  same  girl,  so  varied 
are  the  features  and  the  expression;  and  in  conversation 
this  expression  varies  almost  as  incessantly  as  on  the 
stage.  The  maker  of  the  exquisite  Rookwood  pottery,  in 
Cincinnati,  once  told  me  that  a  second  longer  in  the  oven 
completely  changed  the  aspect  of  the  new  vases.  In  the 
same  way,  a  second's  delay  in  the  taking  of  a  picture  of 
Miss  Farrar  is  sure  to  result  in  an  expression  different  from 
the  one  the  photographer  saw  in  looking  through  the 
camera.  And  her  voice  is,  like  herself,  an  American 
beauty;  it  is  a  voice  animated  by  the  same  sort  of  subtle 
expressiveness  which  has  made  American  faces  famous  the 
world  over  as  types  of  the  highest  feminine  charm  ever 
known. 

This  expressiveness  of  voice  and  face  is  shown  most 
strikingly  in  what  is  probably  her  best  role — Madama 
Butterfly.  Here,  every  second,  she  acts  with  her  voice,  an 
accomplishment  rare  even  among  the  greatest  operatic 
artists.  Others  have  sung  this  part  well,  in  a  general  pas- 
sionate way,  but  not  with  the  vocal  differentiation  and 
subtlety  of  emotional  utterance  which  follow  the  poem  line 
by  line,  just  as  her  facial  expression  does.  The  story  of 
the  Japanese  girl  who  stabs  herself  when  her  American 
husband  who  had  gone  home  on  his  war-ship  returns  after 
a  few  years  with  a  new  wife,  gives  scope  for  a  great  variety 
of  emotional  utterance,  from  the  happy  scenes  of  the 
marriage  ceremony  to  the  patient  waiting  and  the  final 
tragedy.  Her  art  is  specially  sunny  ar^d  full  of  changing 
charms  in  the  first  act.  Such  tenderness,  such  sweet  trust- 
fulness, such  sincere  love — how  could  it  fail  to  give  a  heart 
even  to  the  fickle  naval  officer?  Y'^t  how  like  a  tigress 
was  this  same  girl  when  she  seized  her  dagger  to  expel  the 
insulting  Goro;  and  how  tragic  her  suicide,  how  pathetic 
her  crawling  up  to  the  flag-waving,  blindfolded  child  to 
touch  it  once  more  before  expiring.     No  wonder  Mr. 


GERALDINE  FARRAR  185 

Belasco  tried  to  persuade  her  to  give  up  the  operatic  stage 
and  be  an  actress.  But  that  was  not  to  be  thought  of. 
Give  up  that  lovely  voice,  that  art  of  emotional  song? 
Never! 

Enchanting  and  thrilling  as  were  the  scenes  referred  to, 
the  climax  of  her  impersonation  is  in  the  monologue, 
Senti,  un  bel  di,  in  which  the  poor  little  geisha  pictures  to 
herself  the  return  of  her  American  husband — the  gliding 
of  the  white  vessel  into  the  harbor,  the  coming  of  the  officer 
up  the  street,  his  calling  ^'Butterfly"  from  afar,  his  caress- 
ing of  his  "orange  blossom."  Few  things  equal  to  this  in 
facial  and  vocal  charm  and  sincerity  of  feeling — every  tone 
quivering  with  dramatic  sensibility — have  been  witnessed 
on  the  stage.  In  the  face  of  art  so  realistic,  so  emotional, 
all  the  conventionaliti-es  of  opera  are  forgotten. 

If  Japanese  girls  are  ever  like  that,  they  are  even  more 
fascinating  than  Americans!  Persons  who  have  been  in 
Japan — among  them  the  writer  of  this  book — are  the  most 
astonished  at  the  subtle  arts  of  make-up  and  mimicry 
which  enable  Miss  Farrar  to  look  and  walk  and  gesticulate, 
to  make  curtsies  and  lithe  movements,  just  like  a  real 
musume. 

Girls  who  would  follow  in  her  footsteps  must  not  sup- 
pose, however,  that  all  these  things  came  to  her  as  an  in- 
spiration overnight.  Operatic  genius,  like  every  other 
kind  of  genius,  is  dependent  on  hard  work.  Miss  Farrar' 
has  sometimes  worked  so  hard  that  she  has  fainted  away 
at  her  piano.  .  Such  excess  is  not  to  be  commended;  but 
decidedly  worth  imitating  is  her  procedure  in  studying 
Puccini's  best  opera.  She  read_everything-sh€-€o«ld-'fiIid' 
about  the  Japanese.  "I  tried  to  imbue  myself  with  their 
spirit,"  she  said  to  Mabel  Wagnalls.*  "I  bought  up  old 
prints,  and  pictures,  and  costumes;  I  learned  how  they  eat, 
and  sleep,  and  walk,  and  talk,  and  think,  and  feel.    I  read 

*  Stars  of  the  Opera.    Funk  &  Wagnalls  Co.     1907. 


i86  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

books  on  the  subject  in  French  and  German,  as  well  as  in 
English."  The  difficult  music  of  this  opera  she  had  mem- 
^  orized  in  two  weeks.  "I  am  never  afraid  of  forgetting  my 
lines,"  she  said.  "When  a  thing  is  once  learned,  it  seems 
to  stick  in  a  certain  comer  of  your  brain  and  stay  there." 
"There  was  youth  and  girlishness  in  her  off-hand  manner 
of  making  this  remark,"  Miss  Wagnalls  adds.  "In  fact, 
the  artist  and  girl  are  constantly  alternating  in  the  play  of 
her  features,  and  it  is  fascinating  to  watch  this  hide-and- 
seek  of  youth  and  maturity." 

It  is  because  Miss  Farrar  applies  her  keen  intelligence 
to  every  "part  in  which  she  appears  that  she  so  keenly 
affects  intelligent  listeners.  During  her  first  three  seasons 
in  New  York  she  appeared  (alas!)  in  only  one  Wagnerian 
part — Elizabeth,  in  Tannhduser — but  that  showed  her  to 
be  an  artist  after  Wagner's  own  heart — an  artist  who  ap- 
proaches music  by  way  of  the  di;ama  and  is  at  every 
moment  as  regardful  of  the  words  and  their  poetic  import 
as  of  the  music  itself.  A  musical  chameleon,  she  changes- 
her  inpod  in  accordance  with  the  emotional  color  of  each 
bar.  And  with  the  words  and  tones  her  facial  expression 
changes  every  moment;  an  opera-glass  is  needed  incessantly 
lest  one  may  lose  subtle  details. 

"When  I  can  play  Madama  Butterfly  as  I  play  Eliza- 
beth I  shall  be  content,"  she  said  one  day  to  a  journalist.* 
"In  that  r61e  I  had  a  very  difficult  proposition  to  face. 
As  you  know,  the  saintly  woman  is  always  more  or  less 
stupid  and  uninteresting.  She  comes  on  the  stage  handi- 
capped by  that  feeling  we  all  have  toward  her,  partly  from 
our  own  experience,  partly  because  literary  tradition  has 
made  her  so. 

"  According  to  stage  ruling  she  is  always  a  large  blonde 
with  vague  gestures.    She  is  pitted  in  the  struggle  against 

*  See  the  very  interesting  five-column  interview  in  the  New  York  Sun 
of  March  i,  1908. 


GERALDINE  FARRAR  187 

Venus,  the  luscious,  fascinating,  subtle,  suggestive  one,  the 
type  that  from  the  beginning  of  things  has  had  an  easy 
time  overcoming  man's  resistance.  Elizabeth  has  got  to 
have  something  that  will  dominate  the  situation.  What  is 
there  for  her  to  have  ?  Only  the  force  of  her  own  person- 
ality. She  has  got  to  make  men  feel  that  the  spiritual  is 
better  worth  while  than  the  mere  animal  allurement,  make 
them  feel  it  intensely.  _You  have  got  to  go  through  the 
spiritual  struggle  yourself  before  you  can  convince  others 
of  its  conquering  power,  and  that  is  not  always  an  easy 
task  for  a  young  woman  who  is  not  herself  overspiritualized, 
who  has  a  healthy,  normal  appetite,  and  who  has  an  over- 
abundance of  youthful  vitality.  I  studied  ten  solid  months 
on  that  role,  and  finally  reduced  it  to  the  belief  that  it  was 
a  matter  of  the  light  in  the  eyes. 

"  What  do  I  mean  by  that  ?  Simply  this:  Of  course  after 
a  certain  point  is  reached  we  all  have  to  work  out  our  own 
interpretations;  we  cannot  depend  on  those  of  others j  for 
the  personal  must  come  in  and  rule.  I  worked  out  mine  by 
going  to  the  galleries  and  studying  the  paintings  there. 

"I  looked  at  hundreds  of  old  masters.  I  wondered,  as 
many  others  have  wondered,  why  these  pictures,  many  of 
them  representing  hideous  faces,  grotesque  bodies,  atten- 
uated hands  and  faces,  should  have  achieved  immortality, 
but  the  longer  I  looked  at  them  the  more  I  became  con- 
vinced that  they  were  great. 

"J.suGeumtei  to  that  uncanny  power  in  the  eyes,  where 
the  art  of  the  painters  had  been  concentrated.  The  eyes 
of  those  old  masters  have  a  light  in  them  so  effulgent  that 
you  are  bound  to  recognize  it  and  its  right  to  immortality. 
They  knew ! 

"To  make  Elizabeth  great  she  must  have  that  effulgent 
light.  It  was  by  that  she  conquered,  saving  the  man  she 
loved  from  every  evil  and  from  the  swords  of  his  enemies. 
My  audience  must  feel  that  soul  quality,  must  see  it  shin- 


i88  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

ing  in  the  eyes,  illuminating  the  face,  else  the  r61e  is  per- 
fectly meaningless.  When  I  raise  my  arm  it  must  be 
something  more  than  the  gesture  commanded  by  the  score, 
and  that  something  more  must  grip  the  audience  so  that 
with  the  uplift  of  the  arm  they  get  the  spiritual  uplift  as 
well  from  the  face." 

After  reading  these  remarks,  one  is  inclined  to  conclude 
that  the  main  secret  of  Geraldine  Farrar's  success  is 
brains.  She  is  always  individual,  does  things  her  own 
way,  and  knows  why.  The  strain  of  acting  and  singing  as 
she  does,  with  intense  mental  concentration  at  every  mo- 
ment, is  tremendous.  To  counteract  this,  she  spends  much 
of  her  time  in  bed;  but  her  mind  is  ever  active.  "I  often 
spend  weeks  on  a  diagram  for  one  opera.  I  do  it  when  I 
am  lying  in  bed,  when  I  am  driving  in  the  park;  for  it  is 
not  until  the  mechanism  is  perfect  that  my  other  self  can 
buzz  away.  When  I  go  on  the  stage,  everything  is  mathe- 
matically placed  in  my  mind.  I  have  diagrammed  every 
bit  of  the  opera,  the  work  of  the  other  roles,  the  orches- 
tra's part,  my  own  business;  there  is  nothing  left  to 
chance.  I  do  not  believe  in  the  inspiration  that  some  sing- 
ers talk  about,  except  for  the  finer,  more  delicate  nuances, 
work  that  can  only  be  attempted  by  me  when  I  am  abso- 
lutely letter-perfect  in  the  important  features  of  the  work. 

"  One  fallacy  of  students  of  singing,"  she  once  remarked, 
"  is  the  slavish  devotion  to  exercises.  In  preference  to  five 
hours  of  practice  every  day,  I  say/<9wr  hours  of  thought  a-nd 
jme  hour  of  practice.  You  accomplish  far  more  that  way, 
and  the  wear  and  tear  on  that  most  delicate  organ,  the 
human  voice,  is  minimized."  At  the  same  time  she  has 
discovered  that  she  cannot  with  impunity,  neglect  her 
daily  practice  of  the  scales. 

Being  intensely  emotional  herself.  Miss  Farrar  finds  the 
sweetest  reward  for  her  work  in  the  evidence  that  she  has 
moved  her  audience — the  men  as  well  as  the  women — to 


GERALDINE  FARRAR  189 

tears.  "The  frenzy  of  clapped  hands,"  she  says,  "  is  not  so 
satisfying  to  the  artist  as  the  vague  masculine  sniffle  that 
comes  over  the  footlights,  as  if  men  were  half  ashamed  to 
show  that  they  are  human;  the  quiet  going  out;  the  inde- 
scribable bond  of  sympathy  which  springs  up  suddenly 
between  the  singer  and  her  audience.  These  I  have  had, 
and  in  those  moments  I  am  so  glad  that  I  feel  that  if  I  had 
only  two  notes  to  my  voice  I  must  sing,  if  it  were  only  in 
the  chorus." 

From  letters  written  by  Miss  Farrar  to  friends — includ- 
ing the  author  and  his  wife,  to  whom  she  usually  refers  as 
"the  twins,"  because  we  are  always  together  and  often 
write  our  enthusiastic  remarks  about  her  and  other  artists 
together  so  as  to  get  both  the  feminine  and  the  masculine 
points  of  view  (there's  the  secret  of  my  success  as  a  critic!) 
— I  am  privileged  to  print  a  few  excerpts.  Miss  Farrar 
is  a  great  reader  of  books  and  a  fervent  admirer  of  other 
fine  arts  besides  music — two  peculiarities  (few  musicians 
share  them)  which  have  contributed  to  her  success  by  fer- 
tilizing her  imagination  and  aiding  versatility.  At  the  age 
of  eighteen  this  impressionable,  observant  girl  wrote  of 
pictures  seen  m  Paris:  "I  have  spent  the  whole  afternoon 
in  color  revel  among  these  great  masters,  and  my  head  is 
full  of  their  superb  lines.  ...  I  saw  a  St.  Sdbastien  that 
set  my  heart  wildly  beating,  so  full  of  glory  he  was,  and  the 
inner  divinity  ...  by  Mantegna,  in  the  inevitable  saints' 
groupings  around  the  Virgin.  .  .  .  These  have  the  sweetest 
unearthly  air  about  them,  large  pensive  blue  eyes,  faint  rosy 
tints,  small  noses  and  perfect  mouths;  the  Virgin's  golden 
hair  is  shielded  by  a  delicate  veil,  and  the  halo  shines  like 
a  circle  of  sunshine  about  her  well-shaped  head.  You  feci 
that  the  Mother  of  Christ  was  a  wonderfully  pure  woman, 
and  an  extraordinary  one,  too.  The  hands  are  long  and 
slender,  a  trifle  square  at  the  finger  tips.  .  .  .  How  I  love 
this  old  Italian  school!  .  .  .  Many  pictures  of  the  dead 


igo  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

Christ  are  ghastly  and  sickening,  but  I  saw  a  head,  with 
thorns,  most  admirable,  and  another  at  the  raising  of 
Lazarus — truly  divine.  ...  I  went  to  sit  a  bit  by  the 
Venus  de  Milo — what  a  real  divinity! — don't  pay  attention 
to  pictures  of  her  unless  good-sized;  nothing,  however, 
does  her  justice — and  I  worship  her — I  got  the  best  bust 
I  could  find — the  Beauty. 

**I  enjoy  intensely  acting;  it  is  heaven.  Am  now  at  that 
stage  when  one  is  supposed  to  suggest  ease  and  gracious 
lines,  and  in  reality  it  is  torture.  ...  I  am  flung  around  on 
chairs,  sofas,  and  the  floor,  'acquiring  experience.'  If  a 
peaceful  scene  comes  I  hardly  know  what  to  do  without  the 
excitement.  Hope  my  handwriting  has  not  alarmed  you. 
I  had  to  change;  we  have  had  high  tragedy  and  my  mus- 
cles are  sore,  but  it  is  great. 

"My  French  is  coming — sweet  language  that  contra- 
dicts itself  every  minute — inconsistent  yet  quite  charming. 
Am  scraping  up  some  money  to  hear  Sarah  again — she  is 
my  inspiration  and  always  wonderful — such  a  Camille  is 
wonderful.  .  .  .  Capoul  sent  me  a  charming  note.  ...  I 
heard  he  spoke  very  nicely  of  me.  ...  I  nearly  fainted 
getting  seats  for  Sarah,  in  L^Aiglon,  but  the  joy  of  antici- 
pation is  well  worth  it  all.  .  .  . 

"A  surprise!  At  the  opera  lesson  I  found  a  young  and 
nice-looking  Romdo  to  my  Juliette;  I  was  not  abashed,  and 
can  really  say  in  the  'hot  scenes'  of  that  opera  I  can  hold 
my  own;  the  first  time  I  have  had  anything  more  animated 
than  a  chair  to  confess  my  sentiments  to.  Mamma  is  always 
with  me,  and  critically  corrects  everything  she  thinks  in 
need  of  it.  The  real  moment  of  forgetfulness  of  self  will 
i—- Hfit  come,  I  suppose,  till  I  am~ready  tor^blic  appearance; 
..  ^^nd  even  then  my  concentration  will  have  to  be  very, 
steady  in  order  to  succeed. 

*'I  have  haunted  the  steamship  offices  to  know  when 
Nordica  will  arrive.    I  am  composing  my  letter,  wondering, 


GERALDINE  FARRAR  191 

hoping,  and  praying  she  will  hear  me,  and  tell  me  if  I  have 
been  wise.  .  .  .  My  French  is  so  far  along  that  I  am  not 
identified  as  an  American,  but  I  am  just  the  same. 

**  Aida  and  Lohengrin  have  been  my  portion  for  dramatic 
action,  so-called;  the  latter  is  difficult  by  reason  of  its  im- 
mense simplicity  and  breadth.  Have  been  reading  inter- 
esting stories  of  operatic  lives  and  struggles.  Much  more 
attention  paid  to  the  influence  of  love  than  to  the  work 
itself;  is  it,  then,  so  closely  connected?" 

Some  years  later:  "Have  you  heard  of  Mr.  X?  .  .  , 
He  says  he  likes  to  hear  me  sing  those  things  that  have 
runs  and  trills,  but  I  prefer  to  sing  out  simply  my  soul.  .  .  . 
I  ought  to  sew,  but  cannot  bear  to  feel  a  needle  in  my 
hands.  When  I  come  into  the  vast  inheritance  of  my 
dreams,  all  will  be  changed.  .  .  .  We  fairly  live  at  the 
opera.  Am  so  excited  over  it  that  I  can  hardly  write.  We 
are  meeting  prima  donnas  so  fast,  my  head  is  in  a  whirl." 

From  a  communication  to  the  author,  dated  June  26, 
1909:  "Of  a  northern  country,  I  feel  my  nature  Latin — 
or  is  it  Celt  ? — but  of  a  long  time  past,  and  with  no  appar- 
ent connection  with  those  living  of  that  meridian.  ...  I 
am  essentially  sensuous,  but  have  a  horror  of  vulgarity. 
Suggest  all  you  will,  but  don't  he  it;  but  sensuous  I  am  in 
love  of  color,  line,  sound,  and  thought,  as  well  as  appeal. 
Zeal  and  high  spirits  have  often  evoked  rebuke  along  the 
lines  of  the  very  thing  I  have  tried  to  avoid.  I  believe  I 
conveyed  all  right,  but  its  receiver  was  not  primed  for  that 
quality  of  ammunition.  Half  always  must  depend  on 'the 
listener.  .  .  .  Youthful  exuberance  should  not  be  un- 
kindly censured  as  a  form  of  vain  presumption;  self- 
confidence  is  an  all-important  factor  in  conjunction  with 
other  gifts  that  a  great  Nature  has  seen  fit  to  bestow.  She 
has  also  endowed  me  with  a  strong  will-power  and  a  well 
defined  sense  of  independent  individuality  that  would  not 
be  denied,  nor  cramped  in  the  armor  of  stiff  convention* 


192  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

ality^^JIe.j!dia-se€ks  the  highest  of  himself  must  walk  an 
untrodden  path. 

"I  love  to  sing — not  alone  for  its  compensation  and 
attendant  laurel  wreaths — to  feel  a  divine  thrill  embrace 
artist  and  listener  in  a  swirl  of  unconscious  ecstasy;  to 
give  of  your  gift  with  intelligent  modulations  in  its  current 
is  to  renew  and  strengthen  the  fountain  of  personal  mag- 
netism; to  tire  your  voice  is  a  disagreeable  fatigue;  to 
stimulate  the  imagination  is  to  nourish  it  on  magic  manna; 
it  will  expand  to  undreamed-of  possibilities. 

''Some  day  I'll  go  to  a  still  pagan,  peaceful  country  and 
really  find  out  if  I  am  a  singer  or  something  else  whose 
sleeping  power  does  influence  me  to  say  and  do  unordi- 
nary  things.  ...  It  is,  of  course,  highly  flattering  to  be 
bruited  abroad  as  a  reincarnated  '  Malibran,'  or  some  other 
dear,  delightful,  departed  songstress;  but  while  I  am  not 
sure,  still  I  prefer  to  think  that  Nature  gave  us  all  a  whiff 
of  attention  and  is  clever  enough  not  to  cast  us  in  the 
mould  of  others.  To  portray  a  character,  absurdly  con- 
ceited as  it  may  sound,  I  would  fashion  it  out  of  all  the 
arts  I  know,  but  build  nothing  on  the  memories  of  a 
predecessor. 

"  A  hard-necked  German  critic  said  of  my  Gilda  (much 
to  my  surprise,  as  the  music  is  painfully  unsuited  to  me) : 
*  Many  things  had  been  changed  for  her  [not  true,  only, 
like  so  many  others,  he  thought  it  so],  but  in  the  case  of 
this  favored  singer  her  faults  interest  us  more  than  the 
merits  of  ordinary  mortals.  She  remains  a  vocal  per- 
sonality who  has  moments  of  the  highest  transport  .  .  . 
she  would  satisfy  the  poet  who,  alas,  has  to  depart  so  often 
disillusioned.'  So  it  is  another  case  of  putting  your  soul 
in  it !  Is  it  not,  then,  legitimate,  nay,  art,  to  even  disguise 
an  attempt  at  an  unfavorable  work  so  well  as  to  earn  the 
above?  I  remember  it  well,  and  thought  I  was  frankly 
bad;  but  it  seems  it  was  even  interesting,  and  I  was  able 


GERALDINE  FARRAR  193 

to  convey  .  .  .  that  is  my  point.  ...  I  have  learned  that 
talents  have  limitations.  ...  I  do  not  long  to,  nor  do  I 
believe  I  can,  climb  frozen  heights  like  the  great  Lilli 
[Lehmann]. 

"  At  the  time  of  my  ddbut  in  Berlin,  there  were  not  want- 
ing skeptics  who  gave  vent  to  loud  disapproval  at  such  an 
undertaking  with  comparatively  short  preparation  and  no 
knowledge  of  routine.  .  .  .  That  I  did  appear  when  young 
and  inexperienced  was,  for  me,  an  absolutely  wise  thing; 
I  learned  from  my  mistakes;  and  the  responsibility  sharp- 
ened my  perceptions  and  increased  my  self-possession, 
which  would  have  rebelled  otherwise  and  retarded  progress 
in  the  conventional  schooling.  To  take  a  step  of  this  kind, 
requires  much  faith  in  one's  power,  and  if  that  faith  is  not 
equal  to  the  responsibility  and  courage  to  'risk,'  well — 
then  don't. 

"  One  of  the  pleasantest  incidents  was  when  the  German 
Emperor  made  me  Kammersdngerin.  It  is  not  easy  for  a 
native  to  be  so  honored,  let  alone  a  foreigner;  and  natives 
must  usually  remain  'in  the  service'  till  such  a  rare  and 
honorable  'discharge'  soothes  wounded  breasts  for  the 
youthful  days  that  have  been,  and  they  make  way  for 
others.  The  Emperor  is  a  real  emperor,  and  a  delightful 
audience;  his  compliments  and  Lilli's  were  real  treasured 
memories  at  the  time  of  my  Elizabeth. 

"A  most  charming  listener  was  the  late  King  Oscar  of 
Sweden,  and  I  have  to  thank  him  for  an  unusually  de- 
lightful season,  two,  in  fact,  and  a  fine  gold  medal,  which 
he  himself  pinned  on  my  gown  at  the  conclusion  of  a 
concert. 

"It  was  at  Monte  Carlo  that  my  international  reputa- 
tion began.  ...  If  Caruso  never  sang  a  glorious  note,  such 
as  he  alone  can,  his  kindness  at  the  first  rehearsal  of 
Boheme,  in  which  we  were  both  to  debut,  will  never  be 
forgotten.  .  .  .  With  the  growing  confidence  grew  public 


194  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

enthusiasm;  it  says  something  for  die  Unbekannte,  the 
*  unknown  quantity/  a  product  of  German  training,  that 
she  was  not  swallowed  in  the  tide  of  enthusiasm  that, 
justly,  flowed  at  the  feet  of  the  tenor  (was  I  not  weeping  at 
the  beauty  of  his  organ?),  but  earned  her  share  of  appre- 
ciation. ... 

"Paris  is  entrancing — but  don't  go  there  till  you  have 
a  certain  assurance  that  you  are  somebody;  because  every- 
body is  somebody,  and  you  lose  your  focus  as  to  what  kind 
of  a  one  you  will  want  to  be  .  .  .  then,  you're  confused  in 
the  great  numbers.  I  shall  always  feel  a  thrill  of  pleasure 
when  I  think  that  Paris  held  out  her  hand  to  me,  and  I 
had  not  to  importune  her.  A  charming  incident  was  that 
of  an  evening  of  Romeo,  when  the  son  of  Gounod  was  kind 
enough  to  approve  my  reading  of  the  part,  and  especially 
the  interpretation  of  the  Valse.  As  the  warmth  of  my 
feeling  in  this  r61e  had  evoked  caustic  criticism  and  reflec- 
tion as  to  my  real  age  the  preceding  season  in  New  York, 
it  was  doubly  dear  to  hear  from  old  opera-goers  that  this 
departure  from  the  traditional  Juliette  was  one  of  true 
and  individual  feeling. 

"I  should  like,  little  by  little,  to  adopt  another  side  of 
the  lyric  art — lieder  singing.  If  you  haven't  soul  then,  it 
cannot  be  concealed  by  the  extravagance  of  operatic  gest- 
ure. And  then  again,  I'd  like  to  have  a  bigger  scope  in 
the  speaking  drama;  how  often  have  I  despaired  of  the 
ruthless  sacrifice  of  it,  to  allow  some  foolish  skylarking  in 
the  human  throat,  when  the  color  is  of  quite  another  char- 
acter !  ...  It  does  tax  the  imagination  and  evokes  ridicule 
to  see  a  mad  Marguerite  persistently  seek  the  calcium,  a 
consumptive  Traviata  sob  endlessly  on  her  death-bed.  .  .  . 
Where  is  the  continuity?  No  time — must  be  something 
Moing'  for  everybody;  otherwise,  stars  will  not  'ensem- 
ble.' But  still,  Vive  r Opera — there's  nothing  like  it,  after 
all!" 


GERALDINE  FARRAR  195 

Concerning  the  time  when  she  was  learning  the  part  of 
Elizabeth  with  Lilli  Lehmann,  Miss  Farrar  adds:  ''Im- 
pulsive, restless  from  nervous  energy,  quick  to  change, 
seldom  to  be  relied  on  to  repeat  the  same  'business'  (a 
fault  or  a  virtue  ?  I  still  have  it) ,  I  found,  under  her  guid- 
ance, repose,  economy  of  gesture,  eloquence  of  attitude, 
and  clean  singing.  It  was  one  of  my  most  gratifying  suc- 
cesses—and in  Germany  at  that.  I  have  never  changed  it  in 
any  detail  since  it  was  labelled  in  her  salon,  fix  und  fertig 
fur^s  Puhlikum.  It  was  she  who  had  urged  me  to  try  this 
lovely  saint  as  a  check  in  the  French -Italian  repertoire, 
which  too  easily  suited  my  love  of  color,  expansive  gesture, 
and  disregard  of  vocal  outpourings.  I  can  never  be  too 
grateful  for  the  discipline  of  Lilli  Lehmann.  Sarah  Bern- 
hardt is  another  great  technician  from  whom  I  could  learn, 
perhaps,  because  I  feel  her  an  Element  and  not  a  sex. 
She  played  a  special  Tosca  for  me,  and  I  went  into  her 
dressing-room  and  picked  up  innumerable  hints  and  ideas. 

"I  never  sing  before  a  mirror;  I  learn  to  feel,  and  then 
hear  as  I  feel.  My  hands — large,  nervous,  and  of  almost 
Southern  flexibility — have  always  given  me  trouble.  Lilli 
Lehmann  warned  me  that  I  used  them  and  my  arms  too 
much  to  express  what  I  should  have  put  into  my  face. 
She  tied  them  together  behind  my  back  for  many  a  weary 
lesson  till  I  conquered  the  feeling  of  trying  to  employ  no 
digits  instead  of  the  normal  number,  and  learned  to  use 
my  face." 

Teachers  would  do  well  to  make  a  note  of  that.  The 
present  sketch  may  be  fitly  closed  with  a  translation  of  a 
note  written  to  Miss  Farrar,  in  French,  by  Mme.  Lehmann 
regarding  her  Elizabeth:  "The  criticism  is  splendid  and 
quite  in  accordance  with  my  own  sentiments  and  convic- 
tion. I  must  tell  you  once  more  that  it  was  an  extremely 
beautiful  and  good  thing,  and  that  you  will  not,  perhaps, 
succeed  again  in  making  it  so  infantine,  demure,  and 


196  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

saintly,  even  with  this  slight  impulse  to  live  and  love. 
It  was  very  beautiful,  and  just  as  I  always  wanted  to  see 
the  r61e  done.  We  have  worked  together  to  a  good  pur- 
pose, and  I  sincerely  hope  to  do  other  things  with  you. 
I  thank  you  for  your  kind  letter,  and  I  beg  you  sincerely 
and  most  seriously  to  take  good  care  of  yourself,  for  this  sort 
of  thing  demands  a  strength  of  which  you  have  not  too 
much.  As  for  myself,  you  have  given  me  in  your  Elizabeth 
the  most  beautiful  present.'' 


IS  THE  ART  OF  SONG  DECAYING? 

Alas  for  the  good  old  times  in  music,  the  golden  age  of 
song!  Things  have  come  to  a  pretty  pass,  indeed,  when 
one  of  the  leading  vocal  teachers  is  constrained  to  tell  us 
that  "  the  good  taste  is  near  lost,  and  the  profession  is  going 
to  ruin";  that  some  vocalists  "scream  like  a  hen  when  she 
is  laying  her  egg" ;  that  the  singers,  particularly  the  Italians, 
neglect  true  study,  sacrifice  beauty  of  voice  to  a  number  of 
ill-regulated  volubilities,  and  neglect  the  pronunciation  and 
expression  of  words;  that,  as  for  the  recitative,  some  overdo 
it  and  make  it  barking,  some  speak  it  and  some  hiss  it, 
some  hallow,  bellow,  and  sing  it  out  of  tune;  that  there  is  a 
scarcity  of  the  best  singers  and  a  swarm  of  the  worst ;  that, 
with  some  few  exceptions,  "  the  modern  intonation  is  very 
bad";  that  indistinct  enunciation  "is  nowadays  more  than 
common";  that  persons  "who  never  sang  or  knew  how  to 
sing  pretend  not  only  to  teach  but  to  perfect,  and  find  some 
that  are  weak  enough  to  be  imposed  on";  that  the  church- 
men usually  choose  not  the  best  but  the  biggest  voices; 
and  finally: 

Italy  hears  no  more  such  exquisite  Voices  as  in  Times 
past,  particularly  among  the  Women,  and  to  the  Shame  of 
the  Guilty  I'll  tell  the  Reason:  The  Ignorance  of  Parents 
does  not  let  them  perceive  the  Badness  of  the  Voice  of 
their  children,  as  their  Necessity  makes  them  believe,  that 
to  sing  and  grow  rich  is  one  and  the  same  Thing,  and  to 

197 


198  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

leam  Mustek ,  it  is  enough  to  have  a  pretty  Face:  "  Can  you 
make  anything  oj  her?^^ 

A  sad  arraignment  forsooth!  The  one  consolation  is 
that  it  was  written  in  the  year  1723,  in  that  very  golden  age 
of  the  bel  canto,  with  which  modem  ignoramuses  and 
charlatans  are  continually  and  lugubriously  contrasting 
our  own  age!* 

*  The  strictures  on  Italian  singers,  teachers,  and  pupils  summarized 
in  the  preceding  paragraph  may  be  found,  at  greater  length,  on  pp.  xi, 
15,  69,  141,  159,  166,  of  Tosi's  Observations  on  the  Florid  Song.  Pier 
Francesco  Tosi,  who  was  born  in  1647  at  Bologna,  was  for  a  time  a  singer, 
and  subsequently  went  to  London  where  he  became  one  of  the  most 
famous  teachers  of  his  time.  His  treatise,  Opinioni  de'  cantori  antichi  e 
moderni  a  sieno  osservazioni  sopra  il  canto  figorato,  was  translated  by 
Gilliard  into  English  in  1742;  a  German  version  followed  in  1759;  a 
French,  in  1874.  It  was  a  happy  thought  on  the  part  of  William  Reeves, 
of  London,  to  bring  out  a  reprint  of  the  second  edition,  as  the  book  is  a 
clear  mirror  of  the  musical  world  of  the  time.  Tosi  had  spent  much  of  his 
life  in  travelling,  and  he  was  therefore  familiar  with  the  vocal  situation  in 
the  leading  European  countries.  His  book  can  be  read  with  interest  and 
profit  by  advanced  students;  but  using  is  as  a  guide  would  not  get  them 
very  far  toward  mastering  the  vocal  styles  now  mostly  in  use — the  styles 
of  Verdi,  Puccini,  Wagner,  Gounod,  Bizet.  To  Tosi,  as  to  his  contem- 
poraries, the  chief  charm  of  singing  lay  in  the  abundant  ornaments  with 
which  all  the  airs  were  then  decked  out,  and  which  the  modern  composers 
of  all  countries  have  entirely  discarded.  Chapter  X  begins  with  the 
admonition  that  "passages  or  graces  being  the  principal  Ornaments  in 
Singing,  and  the  most  favorite  Delight  of  the  Judicious,  it  is  proper  that 
the  Singer  be  very  attentive  to  learn  this  Art."  He  admits  that  there 
may  be  too  great  an  abundance  of  ornaments,  yet  considers  that  better 
than  a  deficiency;  wherein,  again,  he  is  a  child  of  his  time.  He  devotes 
chapters  to  the  various  kinds  of  shakes  and  "graces."  He  waxes  indig- 
nant at  his  countrymen  for  allowing  the  impudent  "Composers  in  the 
new  Stile"  to  write  their  own  ornaments  instead  of  leaving  them  to  the 
discretion  of  the  singers.  "Poor  Italy!''  he  exclaims;  "pray  tell  me;  do 
not  singers  nowadays  know  where  the  Appoggiaturas  are  to  be  made, 
unless  they  are  pointed  at  with  a  Finger?  .  .  .  Eternal  Shame  to 
him  who  first  introduced  these  foreign  Puerilities  into  our  Nation.  .  .  . 
Let  us  imitate  the  Foreigners  in  those  Things  only,  wherein  they  excel." 
On  another  page  he  says:  "If,  out  of  particular  Indulgence  to  the  sex, 
so  many  female  Singers  have  the  Graces  set  down  in  Writing,  one  that 
studies  to  become  a  good  Singer  should  not  follow  the  Example." 


IS  THE  ART  OF  SONG  DECAYING?    199 

If  anybody  ever  writes  a  humorous  history  of  music 
a  special  chapter  will  certainly  be  devoted  to  the  amusing 
complaint  that  singing  is  a  lost  art,  which  is  made  in 
every  period.  To  take  only  a  few  more  instances:  Haydn, 
who  was  born  in  1732,  or  nearly  a  century  after  Tosi,  said: 
**  Singing  is  almost  one  of  the  forgotten  arts,  and  that  is 
why  the  instruments  are  allowed  to  overpower  the  voices." 
Garcia,  bom  in  1805,  declared  that  "singing  is  becoming 
as  much  a  lost  art  as  the  manufacture  of  Mandarin  china 
or  the  varnish  used  by  the  old  masters."  Even  Liszt,  who 
was  usually  the  opposite  of  the  laudator  temporis  acti, 
wrote,  about  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  that  ''since 
Rossini's  operas  began  to  gradually  disappear  from  the 
stage  the  vocalists  no  longer  take  the  pains  to  learn  to 
sing.  .  .  .  The  acquisition  of  flexibility,  the  training, 
strengthening,  and  control  of  the  vocal  organs  have  be- 
come almost  a  legend." 

All  this  is,  of  course,  arrant  nonsense.  There  have  been 
great  singers  at  all  times  within  the  last  three  centuries, 
and  at  all  times  the  vast  majority  of  vocalists  have  been 
mediocre  and  worse;  but  at  no  time  since  singing  became 
a  fine  art  were  there  so  many  great  singers — vocalists 
versed  in  a  variety  of  styles  previously  unknown — as  dur- 
ing the  second  half  of  the  century  that  closed  a  few  years 
ago.* 

It  is  doubtful  if  there  has  been  a  decline  even  in  what 
was  the  specialty  of  former  generations — florid  song. 
After  reading  many  contemporary  accounts  of  the  accom- 
plishments of  the  singers  of  former  generations,  I  feel  con- 
vinced that  none  of  them  excelled  Patti,  Melba,  and  Sem- 
brich  in  technical  skill;  and  absolutely  certain  that  in  the 

*  Sutherland  Edwards  remarks  in  his  History  of  the  Prima  Donna, 
(Vol.  II,  p.  190)  that  in  1869,  "at  a  time  when  the  art  of  singing  was 
already  said  to  have  expired,  AdeUna  Patti,  Pauline  Lucca,  and  Chris- 
tine Nilsson  were  all  singing  together  at  the  Royal  Italian  Opera — which 
did  not  look  like  decadence." 


200  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

matter  of  good  taste  and  avoidance  of  exaggeration  these 
three  colorature  singers  are  superior  to  most  if  not  all  of 
their  predecessors  in  the  same  line. 

It  may  be  conceded  that  in  the  mere  matter  of  numbers 
there  have  been  times  when  there  were  more  colorature 
singers  of  the  first  rank  than  in  our  generation;  but  even 
in  this  matter  caution  is  necessary.  Looking  at  the  past, 
we  recall  only  the  great  names  and  bunch  them  together 
for  comparison  with  those  of  our  time,  forgetting  that  they 
were  scattered  over  nearly  three  centuries. 

In  the  realm  of  dramatic  song,  not  only  is  the  number  of 
genuine  artists  greater  than  ever  before,  but  they  have 
become  masters  of  a  finer  and  more  difficult  art.  On  this 
subject  there  are  some  lucid  and  forcible  remarks  in  a 
chapter  on  *'The  Art  of  the  Opera  Singer,"  written  by 
Mr.  Apthorp,*  which  students  cannot  ponder  too  deeply. 
While  dwelling  on  the  undoubted  charms  and  perfections 
of  the  bel  canto  of  earlier  times,  from  Handel  to  Rossini, 
he  points  out  that  the  modern  opera  singer's  art  is  a  much 
higher  and  more  complex  thing  than  the  operatic  art  of 
former  periods.  "The  opera  singer's  position  to-day  is 
verily  no  joke;  he  has  to  face  and  conquer  difficulties  such 
as  the  great  bel  cantists  of  the  Handel  period  never  dreamt 
of."  "Intellectually  and  physically  his  task  has  been 
doubled  and  trebled."  Not  only  is  it  true  that  "the 
opera  singer  to-day  needs  tenfold  the  vocal  technic  that  he 
ever  needed  before,"  he  must  at  the  same  time  be  a  great 
actor,  whereas  his  predecessors  had  little  acting  to  do. 
"In  other  words,  beauty  of  vocal  tone  and  beauty  of  musi- 
cal plastics  were  the  only  recognized  elements  of  emotional 
expression  in  singing  beyond  that  general  fervor  of  delivery 
which  may  best  be  described  as  an  absence  of  apathy;  the 
emotions  themselves  were  not  to  be  differentiated,  the 

*  The  Opera,  Past  and  Present.     By  W.  F.  Apthorp.     New  York: 

Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 


IS  THE  ART  OF  SONG  DECAYING?    201 

physical  character  of  the  dramatis  persona  was  not  to  be 
taken  into  account,  all  the  singer  had  to  do  was  to  sing — 
and  nothing  else."  It  is  therefore  obvious  that  it  means 
much  more  to  be  master  of  the  modern,  complex,  and 
difficult  art,  which  appeals  to  the  intellect  and  the  emo- 
tions as  well  as  to  the  senses,  than  to  be  master  of  the  older 
art  which  appealed  to  the  senses  alone. 

The  difference  between  what  is  expected  of  artists  now 
and  what  was  expected  of  them  two  generations  ago  is 
brought  home  by  comparing  what  Wagner  wrote  in  one  of 
his  earliest  essays  {Der  Virtues  und  der  Kunstler)  regard- 
ing the  most  celebrated  tenor  of  the  first  quarter  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  Rubini,  with  what  we  know  of  the 
most  celebrated  tenor  of  the  last  quarter,  Jean  de  Reszke. 
Wagner  takes  several  pages  to  describe,  in  that  humorous 
style  of  which  he  was  sometimes  master,  how  a  crowded 
Parisian  audience  would  endure  the  bore  of  a  performance 
of  Mozart's  Don  Giovanni ^  paying  little  attention  to  Persi- 
ani,  Grisi,  Tamburini,  or  even  the  admirable  Lablache, 
but  waiting  patiently  for  one  thing — Rubini' s  trill  from  A 
to  B  flat!  That  trill  atoned  for  everything  else,  and  was 
frantically  applauded.  Rubini,  like  the  audience,  had 
reserved  his  attention  for  that  one  thing,  and  after  the  trill 
was  over  the  performance  was  practically  over. 

If  we  compare  this  with  the  breathless  interest  with 
which  audiences  of  our  time  have  been  wont  to  follow 
every  detail  of  De  Reszke' s  highly  emotional  singing  and 
acting  as  Tristan  (even  the  blase  box-holders  remaining  in 
their  places  till  the  end,  awed  by  his  art) ,  we  see  that  not 
only  have  tenors  improved  greatly,  but  audiences,  too. 
The  subject  is  so  important  as  to  call  for  a  special  section. 


XI 

MODERN  IMPROVEMENTS  IN  TENORS 

RuBiNi,  *'KiNG  OF  Tenors" 

The  "king  of  tenors"  in  1825  was  the  thirty-year-old 
Giovanni  Battista  Rubini,  and  he  attained  this  position  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  in  his  youth  no  one  suspected  that  he 
had  any  aptitude  for  singing;  as  a  boy  of  eight  he  had  been 
told  he  had  no  talent  whatever  for  that  art;  subsequently 
a  chorus  master  in  Milan  refused  to  engage  him  because  his 
voice  seemed  to  him  too  poor;  and  when  he  finally  got  a 
chance  to  sing,  at  Naples,  the  manager  refused  to  re-engage 
him  after  his  first  season.  He  persevered,  however,  made 
brilliant  successes  in  Rome  and  Palermo,  and  by  the  year 
mentioned  had  become  the  idol  of  European  opera-goers. 
For  him  Donizetti  and  Bellini  wrote  the  tenor  parts  in 
some  of  their  best  operas.  He  became  as  famous  for  his 
trill,  to  which  reference  has  just  been  made,  as  Melba  has 
become  for  hers;  and,  like  other  tenors  of  his  day,  he  sang 
much  florid  music,  such  as  in  our  day  is  reserved  for  a  few 
;  prima  donnas.  He  is  also  credited  with  having  sung 
f  simple  airs  with  emotional  expression,  but  on  that  point 
one  may  be  permitted  reasonable  doubts  in  view  of  his 
thoroughly  inartistic  behavior  on  the  stage  as  described  by 
friendly  contemporaries,  who  were  so  accustomed  to  that 
sort  of  thing  that  they  did  not  condemn  him  therefor  as 
he  would  be  condemned  by  the  critics  of  our  time. 

Details  are  given  in  the  pages  of  Escudier  and  Chorley; 
He  had  so  little  regard  for  the  plot  that  he  made  no  at- 


RUBINI,   '^KING  OF  TENORS"  203 

tempt  to  act.*  He  was  so  vain  and  selfish  and  had  so  little 
respect  for  the  composer  and  his  music  that  in  concerted 
pieces  he  did  not  give  himself  the  trouble  of  singing  at  all; 
he  might  go  so  far  as  to  open  his  mouth,  but  not  a  tone  did 
he  utter.  In  a  duet  he  would  condescend  to  sing  and  try 
to  make  an  effect  by  showing  how  well  he  could  make  his 
voice  blend  with  his  partner's.  "He  would  walk  through 
a  good  third  of  an  opera  languidly,"  wrote  Chorley,  "giv- 
ing the  notes  correctly  and  little  more,  .  .  .  but  when  his 
own  moment  arrived  there  was  no  longer  coldness  or  hesi- 
tation, but  a  passion,  a  fervor,  a  putting  forth  to  the  ut- 
most of  every  resource  of  consummate  vocal  art  and  emo- 
tion, which  converted  the  most  incredulous,  and  satisfied 
those  till  then  inclined  to  treat  him  as  one  whose  reputation 
had  been  overrated." 

At  the  present  day  it  is  needless  to  point  out  that  a  singer 
who  thus  spoils  a  whole  opera,  making  all  the  rest  of  it  a 
foil  to  his  vocal  climax,  is  not  a  true  artist. 

Rubini  showed  his  bad  taste,  furthermore,  by  the  delib- 
erate use  of  an  offensive  vibrato  and  of  the  unmanly  fal- 
setto; also  by  exaggerated  contrasts  between  loud  and 
soft  tones,  which  in  the  last  years  of  his  career  "degener- 
ated into  the  alternation  of  a  scarcely  audible  whisper  and 
a  shout."  And  such  distortions  his  audiences  apparently 
liked!  His  first  concert  in  St.  Petersburg  put  54,000  francs 
in  his  purse.  When  he  retired  to  Italy,  in  1845,  ^^  was 
a  millionaire,  and  bought  himself  a  dukedom. 

Bellini  is  said  to  have  had  difficulty  in  persuading  Ru- 

*  A  more  recent  rival  of  his  in  this  respect  was  the  tenor  Brignoli, 
concerning  whom  Apthorp  wrote:  "He  could  probably  have  shared  with 
Rubini  the  well-earned  reputation  of  being  the  worst  actor  that  ever 
walked  the  boards.  He  did  not  even  try  to  act;  now  and  then,  in  love- 
scenes,  he  would  take  the  soprano's  hand  and  clasp  it  to  his  expansive 
chest — at  times  to  the  soprano's  conspicuous  discomfiture;  for,  when 
Brignoli  had  once  got  hold  of  it,  it  was  no  easy  matter  to  get  it  away 
again — but  this  was  about  all  he  ever  did.  His  stage  walk  was  notorious; 
one  would  have  thought  that  gait  acquired  in  following  the  plough." 


204  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

bini  to  give  up  the  highly  decorative  style  to  which  he 
owed  his  greatest  early  successes.  (The  latest  tenor  of  note 
who  condescended  to  use  the  unmanly  florid  style  was  the 
German,  Theodor  Wachtel.)  Sutherland  Edwards,  who 
is  indulgent  with  regard  to  such  foibles  and  others,  never- 
theless concedes,  after  setting  forth  Rubini's  style  and 
method,  that  the  "tenor  singing  of  fifty  and  sixty  years 
ago" — this  was  written  in  1887 — ''even  after  Bellini  had 
done  so  much  to  reform  it,  differed  for  the  worse  from  that 
of  a  later  day.  Mario  had  not  nearly  such  a  high  voice  as 
Rubini;  but  he  must,  at  least  in  his  maturity,  have  sung 
with  truer  dramatic  expression  than  his  voluble  yet,  by  all 
accounts,  very  forcible  predecessor." 

Mario's  Modern  Traits 

Giuseppe  Mario,  who  was  born  in  1810  and  retired  from 
the  stage  in  1867,  twenty-two  years  after  Rubini,  was  in- 
deed an  artist  of  much  higher  character.  He  had  not  only 
a  good  voice  but  also  good  taste.  A  born  actor  he  was  not, 
but  his  wife,  the  famous  Grisi,  made  him  one.  Their 
daughter  has  related  how,  many  a  time  when  her  father 
was  elated  by  the  enthusiastic  applause  of  the  audience 
for  some  piece  of  acting  which  he  himself  thought  very 
good,  her  mother  would  cool  down  his  ardor  by  saying: 
"It  was  badly  done;  it  was  wrong;  it  wanted  more  pas- 
sion; forget  the  audience  and  throw  yourself  more  into 
the  part."  He  used  to  answer:  "You  are  the  only  one 
who  finds  fault  with  my  acting."  "Yes,"  she  would  re- 
ply, "listen  to  me.  I  will  tell  you  when  you  have  done 
very  well,  and  then  you  will  see  the  difference";  and  he 
waited  anxiously  for  the  word  of  praise  to  make  him 
happy.  Her  "Bravo,  Mario!"  gave  him  more  pleasure 
than  all  the  noisy  applause  of  the  public. 

Mario  and  Grisi  were  probably  the  most  conscientious 


MARIO'S  MODERN  TRAITS  205 

artists  recorded  in  the  history  of  Italian  singing.  Suther- 
land Edwards  testifies  from  personal  knowledge  that 
Mario  bestowed  the  most  scrupulous  care  and  study  upon 
the  production  of  the  operas  in  which  he  and  Giulia  Grisi 
appeared.  "No  trouble  was  too  great,  no  research  too 
laborious  to  insure  any  roles  they  had  undertaken  being 
represented  as  historically  correct  and  as  perfect  as  pos- 
sible. He  would  rewrite  a  libretto  if  a  version  submitted 
to  him  did  not  meet  with  his  approval.  For  instance,  he 
rewrote  every  line  of  his  part  in  Gounod's  Faust  because, 
he  said,  the  original  words  of  the  Italian  version  were  not 
sufficiently  singable  to  please  him.  To  those  who  have 
given  no  attention  to  the  subject  it  may  appear  to  be  a 
matter  of  supreme  indifference  whether  in  words  intended 
to  be  sung  consonants,  sibilants,  or  vowels  predominate; 
whether  the  sentences  chiefly  commence  and  terminate 
with  hard  or  soft  letters.  To  Mario's  sensitive  ear  and 
fastidious  taste  such  points  were  of  the  utmost  importance 
— as,  indeed,  they  are — and  he  altered  the  versification  of 
Faust  and  other  operas  accordingly."  In  this  respect 
Mario  was  as  modern  as  Jean  de  Reszke,  who  modified 
the  French  version  of  Wagner's  Siegfried  to  suit  his  su- 
perior taste.* 

Mario  and  Grisi  also  revealed  their  good  judgment  and 
modern  attitude  by  their  method  of  studying  a  new  work. 
The  words  were  considered  first,  and  when  the  import  of 
the  text  had  been  clearly  ascertained  and  fully  understood, 
then,  and  not  till  then,  was  the  music  associated  with  it, 
learned  by  heart,  every  salient  feature  and  opportunity 
for  effect  being  carefully  noted.  This  is  the  method 
recommended  by  Wagner  in  his  very  instructive  essay  on 
the  performance  of  Tannh'duser. 

*  On  the  subject  of  translating  librettos,  see  Wagner's  very  interesting 
remarks  in  his  Letters  to  Mathilde  Wesendonck. 


2o6  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 


Tamagno  and  Campanini 

Nineteen  years  before  Mario  retired  from  the  stage  there 
was  bom,  at  Turin,  Francesco  Tamagno,  whose  father 
never  dreamed  that  the  boy  would  some  day  earn  millions 
with  his  voice.  He  intended  him  to  become  a  waiter,  and 
he  actually  did  serve  for  a  while  in  a  restaurant.  But  his 
big  voice  could  not  long  escape  notice.  Without  wast- 
ing much  time  on  study,  he  plunged  into  an  operatic 
career,  and  during  a  period  of  twenty  years  he  was  the 
idol  of  the  patrons  of  the  opera-houses  not  only  in  Italy 
but  in  Spain,  Portugal,  and  South  America.  When  he 
died  he  left  to  his  daughter  a  fortune  of  over  3,000,000 
francs. 

David  Bispham  has  aptly  described  Tamagno  as  "an- 
other type  of  great  voice  which  came  to  its  own  by  its  own 
methods.  No  master  could  teach  him  much  of  voice  cult- 
ure. Vanuccini  said  he  'bleated  like  a  goat,'  and  told 
him  so.  His  musical  education,  notwithstanding  his  enor- 
mous vogue  in  Otello  and  other  Italian  operas  where  volume 
was  the  principal  requisite,  was  so  limited  that,  to  my 
knowledge,  when  he  was  engaged  to  sing  a  performance  of 
Rossini's  Stahat  Mater,  in  Florence,  he  not  only  did  not 
know  the  music,  but  had  never  even  heard  of  it!  He  sang 
it,  however,  with  the  greatest  success,  no  such  effect  having 
been  created  by  any  singer  in  my  expereince  of  oratorio 
as  in  his  rendering  of  the  Cujus  Animam.^^ 

Tamagno  represents  a  temporary  retrogradation  of  the 
Italian  tenor  from  the  high  standard  set  by  Mario.  He 
was  no  actor,  and  although  Verdi  and  Boito  gave  him  the 
benefit  of  their  advice,  his  Otello  became  little  but  a 
weaker  copy  of  Salvini's.  He  imposed  on  the  Latin  audi- 
ences chiefly  by  his  stentorian  power  and  his  abounding 
manliness — qualities  not  usually  associated  with  Italian 


TAMAGNO  AND  CAMPANINI  207 

tenors.  In  the  following  citations  from  my  notices  of  his 
New  York  appearances  (1894)  his  faults  are  perhaps  more 
than  sufficiently  accentuated:  ''Frenzied  applause  greeted 
his  volcanic  outbursts  of  vocalism.  .  .  .  Among  the 
3,000,000  inhabitants  of  Greater  New  York  there  are 
doubdess  thousands  to  whom  the  stentorian  utterance  of 
high  notes  has  greater  charm  than  the  artistic  singing  of 
Jean  de  Reszke,  just  as  glaring  chromos  and  circus  posters 
have  greater  charms  for  some  than  artistic  engravings  and 
sketches;  but  other  thousands  think  differently.  Signor 
Tamagno's  voice  is  not  of  agreeable  quality,  but  it  has  a 
certain  dramatic  forcefulness  which  might  have  been  turned 
to  good  account  had  it  not  been  directed  into  vulgar  chan- 
nels and  exaggerations  by  the  applause  of  the  injudicious. 
As  long  as  he  can  secure  more  violent  applause  by  standing 
at  the  footlights  and  hurling  his  notes  at  the  audience  than 
by  remaining  in  the  frame  of  the  picture  and  addressing 
his  song  to  the  dramatic  personage  it  is  intended  for,  he 
will  doubtless  continue  to  do  so,  whatever  the  judicious 
minority  may  say.  This  world  is  ruled  by  majorities." 
And  again:  ''Whenever  Signor  Tamagno  gets  ready  for  a 
high  note  he  grasps  it  in  his  fist,  pulls  it  out  of  his  throat 
by  main  force,  and  throws  it  violently,  like  a  stone,  into  the 
auditorium.  At  least,  that  is  his  pantomime.  It  has  no 
great  artistic  value,  this  pantomime,  but,  since  it  makes 
those  persons  who  attend  opera  for  a  high  note  applaud 
all  the  more  frantically,  it  doubtless  has  a  commercial 
value,  and  it  would  therefore  be  useless  to  protest  against 
it." 

An  artist  of  much  higher  character  than  Tamagno  was 
Italo  Campanini,  who,  unfortunately,  lost  his  voice  just 
when  his  art  had  become  ripe.  He  had  not  only  a  beau- 
tiful voice,  but  good  taste  and  judgment  in  such  music 
as  suited  his  style.  He  did  not  appeal  to  the  peanut 
gallery,  but  respected  the  composer  and  his  nausic.    In 


2o8  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

London  and  New  York  he  was  almost  as  popular  as 
Caruso  is  to-day.* 

Enrico  Caruso 

Before  Tamagno  died,  his  only  serious  rival  among 
Italian  tenors,  Italo  Campanini,  had  retired  from  the  stage, 
and  it  seemed  as  if  the  croakers  were  right  who  declared 
that  the  race  of  Italian  tenors  had  died  out;  when  lo! 
there  came  in  view  the  triumphant  Enrico  Caruso,  a 
much  greater  artist  than  Tamagno,  and  a  greater  than 
Campanini. 

Caruso  was  born  in  Naples  in  1874.  His  father  was  a 
mechanic;  he  himself  for  some  years  worked  in  the  same 
trade  for  the  equivalent  of  forty  cents  a  day,  and  he  is  said 
to  have  been  an  industrious  worker.  *'Up  to  eighteen 
years  of  age,"  he  once  related,  "I  was  in  doubt  whether  I 
had  a  tenor  or  a  baritone  voice.  I  started  to  sing  in  Italian 
churches  when  I  was  ten  years  old,  and  when  at  eighteen 
I  tired  of  thinking  over  the  problem  of  my  voice,  I  began 
to  take  lessons,  but  I  left  my  first  teacher  very  soon  be- 
cause he  could  not  tell  me  anything  about  the  quality  of 
my  voice.  Another  teacher  found  that  my  voice  was  so 
thin  the  other  fellows  in  the  class  called  it  a  glass  voice, 
perhaps  because  it  broke  easily.  While  I  was  doing  mili- 
tary service  at  Rieti  I  used  to  sing  while  shining  the  but- 
tons of  my  uniform.  Major  Mogliati  heard  me  and  made 
me  spend  leisure  hours  for  many  months  with  a  teacher  he 
procured  for  me."    On  another  occasion  he  recalled  that 

*  Italo  Campanini  was  not  a  great  actor,  but  he  was  a  splendid  singer. 
I  frankly  admit  that  in  my  criticisms  I  gave  him  insufficient  praise, 
dwelling,  as  young  critics  are  wont  to  do,  on  his  faults  while  ignoring  his 
virtues;  but  in  view  of  the  frequent  assertion  that  Wagner  singing  ruins 
the  voice,  I  was  perhaps  justified  in  perpetrating  this  bit  of  banter  when 
he  appeared  in  New  York  in  Verdi's  Otello:  "It  is  sad  that  Campanini's 
voice  should  be  such  a  wreck  while  he  is  still  in  his  prime.  As  he  has 
always  sung  Italian  music,  his  fate  is  a  terrible  warning  to  young  artists 
to  avoid  Italian  opera!" 


ENRICO   CARUSO  209 

his  first  teacher  predicted  a  brilliant  career.  "You  will 
earn  200  francs  a  month,"  he  said,  "when  you  have  grown 
a  little."  Verdi  had  less  confidence  in  him.  "When  I 
created  Feodor,  in  Milan,  he  asked  the  names  of  the  artists, 
and  when  he  heard  mine  he  interrupted :  '  Caruso  ?  They 
tell  me  that  he  has  a  fine  voice,  but  it  seems  to  me  that  his 
head  is  not  in  its  place.' " 

It  is  characteristic  of  Caruso  that  he  should  tell  this  joke 
on  himself.  But  whatever  he  may  have  been  in  Verdi's 
day,  he  is  now  a  man  who  has  his  wits  about  him,  and  a 
genuine  humorist;  no  professional  comedian  could  be 
funnier  than  he  is,  for  instance,  in  Donizetti's  UElisir 
d' Amove;  at  each  performance  he  introduces  new  laughable 
details.  His  sense  of  humor  is  also  manifested  in  his 
remarkable  talent  for  making  caricatures,  on  which  he 
prides  himself  more  than  on  his  success  as  a  tenor.  He 
has  sketched  a  whole  album  full  of  caricatures  of  his 
operatic  colleagues  and  others,  which  has  been  printed. 
It  is  amusing  to  watch  him  at  public  dinners.  Not  know- 
ing enough  English  to  follow  the  speeches,  he  amuses  him- 
self sketching  his  neighbors  and  the  speakers.  Once  when 
I  happened  to  sit  at  the  same  table  his  menus  gave  out,  so 
he  drew  a  most  amusing  sketch  of  Ernest  Schelling  on  the 
table-cloth. 

It  is  related  that  when  Mascagni  made  his  ddbut  as  a 
conductor  in  Paris,  a  lunch  was  given  in  his  honor.  Among 
the  speeches  made  was  one  by  Gailhard,  director  of  the 
Opera,  who  ventured  to  remark  that  Italian  tenors  do  not 
equal  the  French  as  comedians.  An  Italian  guest  then 
rose  and  declared  that  the  talent  of  an  Italian  singer  is  all 
in  his  throat:  "do  not  ask  him  about  the  composition  or 
what  he  is  singing  about." 

This  remark  applied  very  well  to  Rubini  and  many  other 
Italian  tenors,  but  not  to  Mario;  nor  does  it  apply  to 
Caruso. 


2IO  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

As  a  tragic  actor  he  is  less  praiseworthy,  and  in  this 
sphere  he  is  capable  of  incomprehensible  blunders,  as  in 
the  prison  scene  of  Gounod's  Faust,  in  which,  at  his  first 
appearance  in  this  part,  he  encircled  Marguerite's  waist, 
his  hands  decorated  with  white  gloves! 

It  is  to  his  voice  that  he  owes  his  extraordinary  popu- 
larity— a  ringing  voice  of  the  most  luscious  quality,  pour- 
ing from  his  throat  without  the  least  sense  of  effort  and 
giving  the  impression  of  inexhaustible  reserve  power. 
With  such  a  voice,  and  the  magnificent  chest-bellows  that 
feed  it,  he  could  have  won  popular  success  without  being 
an  artist;  but  he  is  an  artist;  his  phrasing  of  famous  airs, 
like  Una  furtiva  lagrima,  Celeste  A'ida,  La  romance  de  la 
fleur,  or  Salut  demeure,  is  always  a  model  of  elegance  and 
genuine  musical  expression — a  delight  and  an  inspiration 
even  as  echoed  by  the  talking  machine.* 

Caruso's  popularity  is  unbounded,  and  his  income  from 
operatic  salaries  and  talking-machine  royalties  fabulous; 
yet  he  has  his  troubles.  His  very  popularity  is  a  source  of 
distress.  To  a  Viennese  journalist  he  thus  confided  his 
sorrows:  "It  is  natural  enough  that  people  should  expect 
circus  tricks  of  me,  for  the  promises  made  in  my  behalf  are 
as  enormous  as  the  prices  charged  to  hear  me.  Look  here, 
the  Viennese  Opera  would  cover  expenses  if  it  charged  only 
double  the  usual  rates — why,  then,  charge  four  or  five 
times  the  usual  rates  ?  These  things  excite  me  dreadfully, 
and  I  am  not  master  of  my  resources.  The  consciousness 
that  absolutely  unprecedented  things  are  expected  of  me 
makes  me  ill,  and  I  fail  to  do  half  as  well  as  I  might  do 
otherwise." 

In  all  probability  Caruso  sings  better  in  New  York  than 
anywhere  else;  for  at  the  Metropolitan  he  appears  about 

*  Of  all  the  phonographic  records  of  artists'  voices  made  so  far,  those 
of  Caruso  are  the  most  satisfactory.  They  cannot  be  too  highly  com- 
mended to  teachers  and  students,  giving  to  the  latter  just  what  most 
teachers  cannot  give — actual  vocal  "demonstrations." 


WHY  DE  RESZKE  WAS  SUPREME       211 

forty  times  a  season  instead  of  two  or  three  times,  as  in 
other  cities,  and  therefore  has  the  comforting  and  helpful 
thought  that  if  he  fails  to  do  himself  justice  on  one  or  two 
occasions  he  can  atone  for  it  on  other  evenings. 

On  the  subject  of  stage  fright  he  contributed  to  the 
Paris  Matin  some  curious  remarks  not  quite  free  from  his 
usual  penchant  for  caricature.  He  relates  that  when  the 
German  Emperor  paid  him  a  compliment  his  emotion  was 
so  great  that  he  lost  his  voice — words  of  thanks  would  not 
come.  "There  is  only  one  trouble  that  I  adore,"  he  con- 
tinues; "it  is  that  which  waylays  me  on  the  stage.  I  am 
seized  with  nervousness,  and  the  anguish  alone  makes  my 
voice  what  it  is.  There  is  no  personal  merit  in  it.  This 
fever  betrays  itself  to  the  public  by  mysterious  effects  which 
move  it,  but  let  it  be  known  that  Caruso  on  the  boards  is 
not  responsible  for  the  pleasure  he  may  give  to  others,  and 
that  everything  is  the  fault  of  that  redoubtable  deity  called 
le  trac  (stage  fright).  And  apparently  my  fright  increases 
from  day  to  day,  for  people  say  to  me  regularly :  ^  You  have 
never  sung  so  well  as  to-day.'-' 

Great  as  is  Caruso  in  his  own  sphere,  that  sphere  is  a 
limited  one,  and  for  that  reason  and  others  to  be  con- 
sidered in  a  moment  he  falls  short  of  the  artistic  stature  of 
another  tenor  of  our  time — the  greatest  tenor,  undoubtedly, 
of  all  times. 

Why  De  Reszke  was  Supreme 

Jean  de  Reszke,  like  Caruso,  did  not  know  at  first 
whether  he  was  a  baritone  or  a  tenor,  and  the  uncertainty 
in  his  case  lasted  longer;  it  was  in  1874,  when  he  was 
twenty-four  years  old,  that  he  made  his  first  appearance 
on  any  stage,  in  Venice,  as  Alfonso,  in  La  Favorila,  under 
the  Italianized  name  De  Reschi;  while  his  tenor  debut 
was  not  made  till  five  years  later,  at  Madrid,  in  the  part  of 


212  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

Robert.  From  the  first,  however,  some  of  the  critics  had 
attributed  to  him  a  voice  which  had  the  quaHty  of  a  robust 
tenor  rather  than  that  of  a  baritone.  He  himself  suspected, 
because  of  the  fatigue  he  suffered  after  singing,  that  bari- 
tone rdles  were  not  for  him;  and  when  his  famous  teacher, 
Sbriglia,  also  advised  him  to  assume  tenor  parts  he  did  so, 
after  retiring  from  the  stage  for  two  years  to  prepare  his 
voice  for  the  change.  As  a  tenor  he  swam  in  his  native 
element,  and  soon  had  all  the  world  marvelling  at  his  art, 
and  paying  him  higher  rates  than  any  other  singer  of  his 
sex  had  ever  received.  In  New  York  he  got  $2,450  for 
each  appearance,  besides  a  percentage  of  the  box-office  re- 
ceipts. That  may  seem  a  large  remuneration,  but  was  it 
too  large  if  his  presence  in  the  cast  added  $5,000  to  the 
box-office  receipts  ? 

To  appear  in  the  same  cast  with  Jean  de  Reszke  was  for 
years  the  ambition  of  all  other  singers.  There  might  be 
vacant  seats  and  apathy  when  other  famous  artists  were 
on  the  boards,  but  never  when  Jean  sang.  His  presence, 
like  that  of  Anton  Seidl  at  the  conductor's  desk,  gave  an 
''atmosphere"  which  benefited  the  whole  performance. 

Why  must  Jean  de  Reszke  be  pronounced  a  greater 
artist  than  the  admirable  Enrico  Caruso?  Because  the 
range  of  his  gifts  and  powers  is  so  much  greater.  Caruso's 
eminence  is  limited  to  Italian  roles;  he  has  impersonated 
the  tenor  roles  in  two  French  operas,  Carmen  and  Faust, 
quite  well,  but  not  yet  authoritatively;  he  may  succeed 
with  Wagner's  Lohengrin,  if  given  in  Italian,  but  Tristan 
and  Siegfried  are  as  far  beyond  his  powers  as  Isolde  and 
Briinnhilde  are  beyond  Patti's. 

With  this  limited  sphere  compare  the  magnificent  range 
of  Jean  de  Reszke — his  perfection  in  three  schools  instead 
of  only  one.  The  best  of  all  Italian  operas  is  Alda,  and  in 
that,  as  Rhadames,  no  Italian  vocalist-actor  has  equalled 
him.    The  best  of  all  French  operas  are  Carmen,  Faust, 


WHY  DE   RESZKE  WAS   SUPREME       213 

RomeOf  and  in  these  no  French  tenor  has  equalled  him. 
The  greatest  German  tenor  r61es  are  Lohengrin,  Tristan, 
Walter,  Siegfried,  and  in  these  no  German  tenor  has  been 
his  peer.  There  is  a  record  for  you — the  record  of  a  Pole 
who  went  to  Italy,  to  France,  to  Germany,  and  beat  the 
native  singers  on  their  own  ground,  in  their  own  specialties ! 

It  was  in  Paris  that  Jean  (like  other  kings,  he  prefers  to 
be  referred  to  by  his  first  name)  first  won  distinction  in 
Italian  and  French  roles,  including  Meyerbeer's  Robert 
and  his  Raoul,  in  Les  Huguenots — another  of  his  incom- 
parable parts.  His  John  the  Baptist,  in  the  Herodiade, 
pleased  Massenet  so  much  that  he  asked  him  to  create  the 
title-part  of  Le  Cid.  In  1887,  we  read  in  Grove's  Diction- 
ary 0}  Music  and  Musicians,  "  he  appeared  at  Drury  Lane 
as  Rhadames  and  sang  as  Lohengrin,  Faust,  and  Raoul. 
He  worthily  fulfilled  his  early  promise  by  the  marked  im- 
provement both  in  his  singing  and  acting,  and  by  his  ease 
and  gentlemanly  bearing,  the  improvements  being  almost 
entirely  due  to  his  own  hard  work  and  exertions.  On  June 
4,  1888,  as  Vasco  de  Gama,  he  made  his  first  appearance 
at  Covent  Garden,  and  from  that  season  dates  the  revival 
of  opera  as  a  fashionable  amusement  in  London." 

It  was  not  only  Italian  and  French  opera  that  he  made 
"fashionable."  He  did  the  same  thing  for  Wagner — 
strange  to  relate — in  London,  in  New  York,  and  even  in 
Paris. 

The  New  York  episode  is  one  of  the  most  amusing  in 
the  history  of  music.  Anton  Seidl  and  his  admirable 
German  artists — among  them  Lilli  Lehmann,  Marianne 
Brandt,  Auguste  Krauss,  Amalie  Materna,  Max  Alvary, 
Emil  Fischer,  Niemann,  Vogl,  Reichmann,  had  already 
made  Wagner  popular — very  much  so — with  the  general 
public,  but  not  with  the  fashionable  patrons  of  the  Met- 
ropolitan Opera  House.  These  were — with  some  ex- 
ceptions— displeased  with  the  preponderance  of  Wagner 


214  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

during  seven  years  of  German  opera,  and  at  a  secret 
meeting  of  the  directors  it  was  resolved  to  get  rid  of  Wag- 
ner by  engaging  Jean  de  Reszke  and  giving  only  French 
and  Italian  operas.  Poor,  deluded  men!  They  had  un- 
wittingly hired  Beelzebub,  prince  of  devils,  to  cast  out 
Satan!  For  Jean  de  Reszke — who  had  up  to  that  time 
sung  only  one  Wagner  part — soon  developed  into  the  most 
powerful  of  all  Wagner  singers  and  champions;  and  with 
the  aid  of  Lilli  Lehmann,  Nordica,  Ternina,  Schumann- 
Heink,  his  brother  Edouard,  and  others,  he  gradually 
brought  back  again  the  same  predominance  of  Wagner 
that  existed  before  he  came.  The  situation  can  best  be 
illustrated  by  one  of  those  instantaneous  photographs 
known  as  newspaper  criticisms  of  which  the  author  pleads 
guilty: 

"  It  is  sad  not  to  have  Mme.  Nordica  in  the  Wagner  roles 
at  the  Metropolitan  this  winter,  but  there  is  also  an  amus- 
ing side  to  the  controversy  now  raging  between  the  best, 
the  best-known,  and  most  expensive  singers  in  the  world — 
the  artists  of  the  'French  and  Italian'  company  brought 
over  here  a  few  years  ago,  with  a  view  to  driving  out  Wag- 
ner. What  are  they  quarrelling  about  ?  About  the  privi- 
lege of  singing  the  roles  in  Wagner's  later  music  dramas! 
That  Mme.  Nordica  should  wish  a  monopoly  of  the  roles 
of  Isolde  and  Briinnhilde  is  but  natural;  she  has  been 
brought  up  in  that  school  and  won  her  greatest  triumphs 
in  it.  But  how  about  Mme.  Melba  ?  Was  she  not  brought 
over  to  America  as  a  sort  of  new  Patti  to  revive  Italian 
opera  of  the  florid  type  and  stab  Wagner  in  the  back? 
And  what  is  she  doing  now  ?  Making  it  a  condition  of  her 
returning  to  New  York  that  she  be  allowed  to  sing  the  part 
of  Briinnhilde,  the  most  Wagnerian  of  all  r61es!  It  was  at 
Chicago  that  she  became  so  enthusiastic  over  a  perform- 
ance of  Tristan  and  Isolde,  in  which  Nordica,  the  De 
Reszkes,  and  Seidl  participated,  that  she  wrote  a  letter  of 


WHY  DE  RESZKE  WAS  SUPREME       215 

thanks  to  Jean  de  Reszke,  who  in  reply  urged  her  to  learn 
one  of  the  later  Wagner  roles  herself,  advising  her  to  begin 
with  Siegfried,  because  to  a  novice  in  Wagnerian  art  the 
strain  in  that  is  less  great  than  in  others,  as  the  heroine 
appears  only  in  the  last  act.  Mme.  Melba  was  delighted 
with  the  advice,  and  has  been  spending  part  of  her  vacation 
learning  this  role  with  Herr  Kniese,  the  official  vocal 
teacher  of  Bayreuth. 

"M.  Jean  de  Reszke  seems  to  have  become  as  ardent 
a  Wagnerite  as  Mr.  Seidl  himself.  He  has  no  intention  of 
leaving  the  stage  until  he  has  mastered  all  the  Wagner 
r61es  which  are  not  yet  in  his  repertory — the  young  Sieg- 
fried this  year,  Siegmund  next,  and  then  the  Siegfried  of 
the  Gotterddmmerung,  which  will  leave  only  Loge,  Tann- 
hauser,  and  Rienzi.  He  is  to-day  the  best  living  Lohen- 
grin, Walter,  and  Tristan.  He  advises  all  other  singers  to 
learn  Wagner  roles — has  urged  Plan^on  to  learn  Fafner, 
and  told  Emma  Eames  that  she  would  make  a  splendid 
Isolde.  Mme.  Eames  is  more  proud  of  her  Wagnerian 
repertory  than  of  anything  else.  It  includes  Elisabeth, 
Elsa,  Eva,  and  Sieglinde,  and  she  thinks  that  last  part  (in 
Die  Walkure)  "  the  greatest  part  in  any  opera  ever  written." 
Mme.  Calve,  too,  who  would  be  superb  in  some  of  the 
Wagner  roles,  told  Mr.  Seidl  last  year  that  she  was  going 
to  sing  Isolde  in  Paris  and  that  she  wanted  him  to  conduct. 

"What  does  it  all  mean,  this  craze  and  eagerness  for  the 
Wagner  roles  on  the  part  of  all  the  great  singers  ?  Haven't 
the  critics  and  the  teachers  told  them  a  million  times  that 
these  roles  are  unvocal,  and  that  they  ruin  the  voice? 
Didn't  the  leading  Vienna  paper  write  as  late  as  1892: 
'Whether  Herr  Dippel  also  understands  the  art  of  sing- 
ing, he  could  not  show  as  Siegfried;  his  second  role,  Raoul, 
in  the  Huguenots  will  make  that  point  clear'?  Haven't 
the  critics  and  the  Italian  teachers  made  it  clear  yet  that 
Wagner's  vocal  music  is  'instrumental,'  and  that  it  puts 


2i6  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

the  pedestal  on  the  stage,  the  statue  in  the  orchestra? 
Fie,  it  is  really  discouraging  to  try  to  enlighten  such  block- 
heads as  these  singers  and  the  asinine  public,  which  will 
persist  in  preferring  Wagner  to  everything  else! " 

During  the  last  years  of  Jean's  reign  in  New  York  he 
sang  mostly  Wagnerian  roles,  and  as  the  De  Reszke  nights 
were  always  the  fashionable  nights,  Wagner  found  himself 
in  the  amusing  position  of  favorite  of  the  same  class  of 
opera-goers  as  those  Parisians  who,  in  1861,  hissed  his 
Tannhduser  because  he  had  refused  to  put  a  ballet  into 
the  second  act!  Of  course,  this  could  not  last;  the  box- 
holders  longed  for  the  operas  in  which  the  lights  would  not 
be  turned  down  or  conversation  hissed;  and  when  Jean 
retired  from  the  stage,  Wagner  had  to  content  himself 
again  with  the  willing  patronage  and  approval  of  those 
who  prefer  thrills  to  trills. 

Jean  was  too  great  an  artist  to  regard  the  situation  as 
simply  a  personal  triumph.  He  was  working  for  the 
honor  of  Wagner  more  than  for  his  own,  and  for  this 
reason  he  insisted  on  the  re-engagement  of  Anton  Seidl, 
who  had  been  side-tracked  for  an  Italian  conductor.  I 
shall  never  forget  his  appearance  when,  during  an  inter- 
mission, I  asked  him  in  his  dressing-room  if  he  thought  he 
could  persuade  Grau  to  take  Seidl  back.  Drawing  himself 
up  in  a  way  which  seemed  to  add  some  inches  to  his  great 
stature,  he  exclaimed:  "Si  je  le  veux,  je  le  veux" — with 
the  mien  of  an  emperor  whose  every  word  is  law. 

The  only  thing  to  regret  about  this  Wagnerian  absorption 
was  that  it  greatly  reduced  the  opportunities  to  see  and 
hear  the  incomparable  Jean  in  the  Italian  and  French 
parts  he  had  made  his  own.  To  mention  only  one  of  them: 
in  its  manliness  (think  of  the  superb  virility  of  the  duel 
scene!),  picturesqueness,  romance,  passion,  tenderness, 
and  pathos,  his  Romeo  never  has  had  its  equal  on  the 
operatic — if  on  any — stage.    I  have  seen  many  women, 


WHY  DE  RESZKE  WAS   SUPREME       217 

and  men,  too,  wiping  the  tears  from  their  eyes  during  the 
death  scene.  It  was  after  one  of  these  Romeo  perform- 
ances that  I  wrote  the  following  words,  from  which  stu- 
dents may  learn  the  chief  lesson  of  Jean  de  Reszke's  career: 

"He  enjoys  the  consciousness  of  being  the  greatest 
tenor  that  ever  lived;  he  loves  the  roles  he  impersonates  so 
incomparably;  and  he  must  be  royally  happy  in  knowing 
that  he  does  everything  for  art's  sake  and  nothing  for  effect 
or  applause.  Ye  tenors  and  sopranos,  ye  baritones, 
basses,  and  contraltos,  who  fancy  that  to  win  the  public  it 
is  necessary  to  stoop  to  its  lowest  taste — look  at  Jean  de 
Reszke!  He  never  stoops  to  conquer,  he  raises  the  public 
to  his  own  level.  Never  does  he  rely  for  applause  or  suc- 
cess on  explosive  high  notes  or  sentimental  distortion  of 
melodies.  Every  bar  he  sings  meets  the  composer's  high- 
est ideal,  he  abhors  clap-trap  as  much  as  Wagner  did — 
and  his  reward  is  such  as  we  see." 

He  took  great  pride  in  the  fact  that  while  he  might  be 
great  in  Gounod's  Romeo,  he  was  greater  still  in  Wagner's. 
To  a  young  lady,  a  friend  of  mine,  he  gave  his  photograph, 
on  which  he  had  written:  Souvenir  de  Romeo  devenu 
Tristan.  But,  though  he  had  "become  Tristan,"  he  still 
remained  the  ideal  Romeo  of  so  different  a  vocal  style; 
and  there  lay  the  miracle. 

Is  it  just  to  place  Jean  above  the  great  German  inter- 
preters of  Wagner's  tenor  r61es — above  Tichatschek, 
Schnorr,  Niemann,  Vogl,  Gudehus,  Alvary,  Burgstaller, 
Burrian,  Knote?  I  never  heard  Tichatschek  and  Schnorr, 
concerning  whom  Wagner  waxes  so  enthusiastic  in  his  es- 
says and  letters;  but  from  what  I  have  read  about  them  I 
conclude  that  while  as  actors  they  may  have  been  the  Pole's 
peer,  they  can  hardly  have  had  his  thorough  command  of 
all  the  resources  of  vocal  art. 

In  their  day  Wagner  found  it  necessary  to  emphasize 
chiefly  the  fact  that  an  opera  singer  should  be  an  actor; 


2i8  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

to  secure  good  acting  and  emotional  declamation,  he  was 
willing  to  make  allowances  on  the  purely  vocal  side,  as  we 
saw  in  the  case  of  Schroder-Devrient;  but  it  is  not  to  be 
supposed  that  this  did  not  cost  him  a  bitter  pang.  He 
would  certainly  have  preferred  Lilli  Lehmann;  and,  in 
the  same  way,  he  probably  would  have  praised  Jean  even 
more  cordially  than  he  did  the  two  tenors  named.  It  does 
not  seem  likely  that  they,  any  more  than  the  other  splen- 
did artists  referred  to,  had  quite  succeeded  as  he  did  in 
amalgamating  the  German,  Italian,  and  French  styles 
into  one  cosmopolitan  style  which  made  the  Wagnerian 
speech-song  a  branch  of  the  Italian  bel  canto — a  very  diffi- 
cult branch,  but  one  which  others  have  acquired,  among 
them  Lilli  Lehmann,  Lillian  Nordica,  Emil  Scaria  (in 
Parsifal),  Emil  Fischer  (in  Die  Meister singer),  Alvary  (in 
Siegfried). 

But  Jean  is  king  of  them  all.  When  he  sang,  the  statue 
was  never  in  the  orchestra,  the  voice-part  was  abundantly 
melodious,  actor  and  singer  were  one — one  with  each  other 
and  the  orchestra.  I  seldom  heard  him  without  recalling 
Wagner's  splendid  tribute  to  the  first  of  all  Tristans — 
Schnorr.  In  that  essay  there  is  a  sentence  which  takes  up 
almost  a  page.  It  is  so  intricate  and  polyphonic  that  in 
order  to  translate  it  into  English  it  would  be  necessary  to 
put  under  it  a  small  charge  of  dynamite  and  explode  it  into 
a  dozen  shorter  sentences.  The  substance  of  it  is  that, 
although  in  no  opera  written  before  Tristan  and  Isolde  had 
there  ever  been  so  rich  and  involved  an  orchestral  score 
as  that  of  the  third  act  of  Tristan,  in  particular,  neverthe- 
less, Schnorr,  by  his  wonderful  art,  held  the  attention  of 
the  whole  audience  in  such  a  way  that  this  orchestral  sym- 
phony appeared  in  comparison  to  his  song  like  the  sim- 
plest accompaniment  to  an  operatic  solo,  or,  rather,  dis- 
appeared as  a  separate  factor  and  seemed  to  be  part  and 
parcel  of  his  song. 


WHY  DE  RESZKE  WAS   SUPREME       219 

How  far  this  takes  us  away  from  those  days,  in  the 
fifties  of  the  last  century,  when  Wagner  had  to  write  to 
Liszt  regarding  Lohengrin:  "If,  at  the  performance,  it  was 
always  only  the  music,  nay,  commonly  only  the  orchestra, 
that  attracted  attention,  rest  assured  that  the  vocalists  fell 
far  below  the  level  of  their  task." 

That  such  a  criticism  was  called  for  in  those  days  shows 
how  the  art  of  song,  instead  of  being  on  the  decline,  has 
progressed. 

Jean  de  Reszke  represents  the  climax  of  this  progress; 
certain  details  in  his  impersonations  mark  the  highest 
achievements  of  the  art  operatic  up  to  date,  and  to  them 
we  must  look  for  hints  as  to  the  future  apotheosis  of  that 
art.  When  he  sang  Elsa,  ich  liebe  dich,  there  was  a 
warmth  in  his  voice,  with  a  sincerity  and  tenderness  in  his 
phrasing  and  mien  that  thrilled  the  audience  as  this 
declaration  of  love  would  have  thrilled  an  actual  Elsa  her- 
self. Another  instance  occurs  in  the  forest  scene  of  Sieg- 
fried when  the  hero,  after  trying  in  vain  to  learn  the  lan- 
guage of  the  bird,  exclaims,  "Voglein,  mich  diinkt  ich 
bleibe  dumm"  ("Birdie,  methinks  I'll  ever  be  a  fool") — 
which  Jean  sang  with  a  mixture  of  naive  drollery  and  dis- 
appointment that  was  altogether  delightful. 

But  the  most  wonderful  thing  he — or  any  artist — ever 
did  was  his  delivery  of  the  word  "Isolde"  in  the  last  bar 
he  sings  in  Tristan.  It  was  a  thrilling  display  of  emotion, 
which  the  critic  of  the  London  World  best  succeeded  in 
describing:  "Nothing  struck  me  more  than  his  singing  of 
the  phrase  *  Isolde'  as  he  dies.  It  was  most  wonderful; 
not  merely  affecting  as  the  despairing,  and  adoring,  cry  of 
a  dying  man  thinking  of  the  woman  he  worships;  but  far 
more  than  that.  In  it  one  hears  not  only  love  but  death. 
It  is  the  mysterious,  whispering  utterance  of  a  spirit  al- 
ready far  away;  as  if  the  soul,  having  started  on  its  dark 
journey,  were  compelled  by  its  old  and  beautiful  earthly 


220  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

passion  to  pause,  and  to  look  back  down  the  shadowy  vista 
to  the  garden  of  the  world  that  it  had  left,  to  the  woman 
that  it  had  left,  perhaps  forever,  and  to  send  down  the  dis- 
tance one  last  cry  of  farewell,  one  last  dim  murmur  of 
love,  spectral,  magical  already  with  the  wonder  of  another 
world.  Such  an  effect  as  this  is  utterly  beyond  the  reach 
of  any  one  who  is  not  a  great  artist.  It  is  thrilling  in  its 
imaginative  beauty.  It  opens  the  gates  as  poetry  does 
sometimes  and  shows  us  a  faint  vision  of  a  far-away 
eternity." 

Those  who  never  heard  Jean  de  Reszke  may  well  feel 
inclined  to  doubt  whether  any  mortal  could  possibly  put 
so  much  significance  into  one  short  word  of  three  syllables; 
but  he  certainly  did  it;  I  heard  him  do  it  a  dozen  times, 
and  never  have  I  heard  anything  approaching  it  for  con- 
centrated art  except  the  "I'amour"  of  Calve,  previously 
referred  to  (p.  150).  Have  we  here  glimpses  of  a  future 
when  the  art  of  singing  will  have  reached  a  higher  general 
level  than  it  has  now?  We  may  well  believe  this,  when 
we  bear  in  mind  the  enormous  progress  from  Rubini's 
trills  to  De  Reszke' s  thrills.  It  indicates  the  direction  in 
which  students  must  aim. 

To  hear  Jean  de  Reszke  as  Lohengrin,  Walter,  Tristan, 
or  Siegfried  was  to  realize  the  truth  of  Wagner's  assertion 
that  the  human  voice  is  "the  most  genuine  and  the  most 
beautiful  organ  of  music,"  and  that,  compared  with  the 
infinite  variety  of  tone  coloring  of  which  it  is  capable,  even 
"the  most  manifold  imaginable  mixture  of  orchestral  tints 
must  seem  insignificant." 

Always  his  own  most  severe  critic,  Jean  was  sure  to 
retire  from  the  stage  as  soon  as  he  felt  that  he  would  in 
any  respect  fall  short  of  his  highest  ideals.  This  decision 
was  to  be  regretted;  for  while  the  critics  dearly  love  to 
level  their  telescopes  in  search  of  spots  on  the  sun,  the  pub- 
lic gladly  makes  allowances  in  order  to  enjoy  what  still 


WHY  DE  RESZKE  WAS  SUPREME       221 

remains  incomparable  in  an  artist.  Unlike  other  singers, 
Jean  refused  to  go  on  the  concert  stage  after  leaving  the 
opera.  Henry  Mapleson  organized  a  syndicate  which 
offered  him  $5,500  a  night  for  an  American  tour,  but  the 
great  tenor  replied:  *'My  dear  friend:  The  brilliant  propo- 
sition you  have  made  to  me  is  exceedingly  tempting,  and 
I  am  sure  that,  under  your  able  direction,  all  would  work 
well  for  my  interests  and  my  peace  of  mind — a  matter  of 
the  last  importance  to  a  lyric  artist.  But  I  am  so  happy  in 
Paris,  and  my  strong  desire  to  create  Siegfried  [in  French] 
being  satisfied,  I  have  for  the  moment  no  other  ambition." 

Of  the  private  school  for  singers  which  Jean  has  estab- 
lished in  Paris,  some  account  will  be  given  in  a  later 
chapter  (Teachers  and  Pupils).  For  a  time  he  acted  as 
chef  de  chant,  or  director  of  singing,  at  the  Grand  Opera, 
his  task  being  that  of  helping  fully  formed  artists  to  main- 
tain or  improve  the  quality  of  their  singing,  and  perhaps 
correct  certain  defects  of  manner  and  style.  But  he  soon 
resigned,  having  found  that  his  ideals  were  not  being  lived 
up  to. 

One  more  of  the  secrets  of  Jean's  success  must  be  re- 
vealed before  we  pass  on.  He  retired  from  the  stage  as 
soon  as  he  felt  the  least  waning  of  his  powers.  But  why  did 
he  remain  on  the  stage  so  long  ?  Why  subject  himself  to  the 
hard  work  of  daily  rehearsals,  of  constant  practice,  when 
he,  the  most  high-priced  singer  (except  Patti)  of  the  time, 
the  owner  of  vast  estates  in  Poland,  of  great  wealth  ac- 
quired through  his  voice  and  his  race-horses,  might  long 
have  sat  in  an  opera  box  of  his  own,  the  plutocratic  peer 
of  the  millionaires,  instead  of  entertaining  them  ?  He  was 
impelled  to  do  this  solely  by  his  love  of  art,  his  missionary 
spirit;  and  this  prompted  him  to  forego  social  pleasures  for 
fear  of  injuring  his  voice.  Of  this  necessary  sacrifice  he 
often  spoke  to  me;  but  he  was  willing  to  make  it.  Con- 
trast this  with  what  Otto  Floersheim  once  wrote  in  the 


222  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

Musical  Courier  about  Ernst  Krauss,  and  learn  how  not 
to  do  it: 

''He  has  a  heroic  tenor  voice,  and  a  glorious  one  at  that, 
given  him  by  nature,  but  he  is  also  a  Naturbursche,  a 
fellow  who  has  not  learned  how  to  use  his  voice,  and  who, 
besides,  does  not  take  the  least  care  of  his  precious  and 
precarious  gifts.  I  heard  him  shout  recently  at  the  top  of 
his  lungs  at  a  collegial  gathering  of  his  friends  in  a  beer 
restaurant,  and  only  a  few  nights  later,  at  the  Wagner 
Verein's  concert,  he  was  so  hoarse  that  he  could  sing  only 
the  beginning  of  his  Siegfried  music,  while  the  rest  was,  if 
not  silence,  at  least  only  whispering." 

Jean  de  Reszke  (who  was  born  at  Warsaw  in  1850) 
comes  of  a  musical  family.  His  mother  was  a  pupil  of 
Garcia  and  Viardot;  his  sister  Josephine,  who  died  young, 
had  already  distinguished  herself  as  a  prima  donna;  one 
brother,  named  Victor,  had  a  fine  tenor  voice,  which  he 
preferred  to  keep  to  himself;  and  another  brother,  Edouard, 
became,  as  everybody  knows,  among  the  basses  of  his  day 
what  Jean  was  among  the  tenors.  What  Italian  of  our 
day,  either  as  singer  or  actor,  could  equal  his  comical  Don 
Basilio,  in  //  Barbiere  di  Siviglia,  or  his  pompous  King,  in 
A'ida?  What  Frenchman  his  Mephistopheles,  in  Faust^ 
his  Marcel,  in  Les  Huguenots  ?  What  German  his  Wan- 
derer, in  Siegfried,  his  Hagen,  in  Gdtterd'dmmerung  ?  His 
Mephistopheles  was  part  sinister,  part  humorous,  with 
subtle  touches  of  sarcasm  in  the  garden  scene;  he  was  the 
most  convincing  of  all  stage  devils.  But  greatest  of  all  his 
r61es  was  his  Leporello,  in  Mozart's  Don  Giovanni.  To 
mention  only  one  detail:  No  comic  actor  ever  seen  on  the 
stage  could  have  produced  so  amusing  an  effect  as  he  did 
with  voice  and  action  combined  in  reading  to  Elvira  the 
list  of  Don  Juan's  love-affairs:  "in  Italy,  six  hundred  and 
forty;  in  Germany,  two  hundred  and  forty;  in  France,  one 
hundred;  and  in  Turkey,  ninety;  but  in  Spain,  here,  one 


WHY  DE   RESZKE  WAS   SUPREME      223 

thousand  and  three."  That  mille  e  tre  will  forever  ring  in 
the  ears  of  those  who  were  so  lucky  as  to  hear  it.  Here 
was  the  perfection  of  operatic  art;  Jean  himself  never  did 
anything  better. 

Many  other  tenors  and  basses  might  be  profitably 
written  about  here,  but  the  chief  lessons  have  now  been 
sufficiently  enforced,  and  we  may  pass  on  to  the  instru- 
ments after  a  few  more  remarks  about  four  peculiarly  up- 
to-date  baritones,  an  Englishman,  two  Frenchmen,  a 
German,  whose  achievements  illustrate  the  modern  im- 
provements in  the  art  of  singing. 


XII 

FOUR  UP-TO-DATE  BARITONES 
Charles  Santley 

Mozart  had  the  courage,  when  he  wrote  his  Don 
Giovanni^  to  assign  the  leading  part  to  a  baritone;.  Before 
that  time  the  tenor  had  usually  *' played  first  fiddle,"  nor 
did  he  cease  to  do  so  after  Mozart.  Wagner  wrote  some 
scores  giving  excellent  opportunities  to  basses  and  bari- 
tones, yet  the  very  names  of  half  of  his  operas — Rienzi, 
Tannhduserj  Lohengrin,  Tristan  and  Isolde,  Siegfried,  and 
Parsifal  — indicate  that  the  tenor  is  the  hero.  Rossini  was 
the  first  Italian  who  gave  important  numbers  to  the  bass 
voice,  and  with  few  exceptions  the  tenor  remained  the 
centre  of  interest  at  operatic  performances  until  about 
half  a  century  ago. 

One  of  the  first  to  show  that  one  need  not  be  a  tenor  to 
become  very  popular  was  the  English  baritone  Charles 
Santley.  Yet  even  he  began  as  a  tenor.  When  his  voice 
recovered  from  the  usual  break,  which  occurred  to  him 
before  he  was  fourteen  years  of  age,  his  father  insisted  on 
his  singing  tenor,  which  he  did,  though  he  himself  was 
convinced  he  was  not  a  tenor.  Before  he  reached  his 
eighteenth  year,  however,  he  rebelled  and  dropped  into 
the  bass  clef.  As  he  had  a  certain  power  in  the  low  notes 
he  was  then  pronounced  a  bass,  and  he  sang  any  music  in 
the  bass  clef  which  fell  to  his  lot.  It  was  not  until  he  made 
his  operatic  ddbut  as  Hoel,  in  Dinorah,  at  the  age  of 
twenty-five,  that  his  real  register — high  baritone — was  re- 

324 


CHARLES  SANTLEY  225 

vealed  to  him.  "Had  I  followed  the  commands  of  my  first 
musical  instructor  to  keep  to  the  tenor  clef,  or  the  advice 
of  would-be  instructors  when  I  adopted  the  bass  clef,  the 
inevitable  result  would  have  been  ruin  to,  or  total  loss  of, 
my  voice,"  he  declares  in  his  book.  The  Art  of  Song. 

In  consequence  of  this  narrow  escape,  and  for  various 
other  reasons,  he  holds  that  only  one  who  is  or  has  been 
a  good  singer  can  be  a  satisfactory  teacher.  How  many 
such  are  there  among  the  10,000  singing  teachers  who  are 
busy  in  London  alone  ? 

Charles  Santley's  success  is  the  more  remarkable  inas- 
much as  he  had  not  the  advantage  of  being  brought  up  in 
a  musical  or  theatrical  atmosphere.  He  was  born  at  Liv- 
erpool in  1834.  As  a  boy  the  intimate  desire  of  his  heart 
was  to  be  an  actor,  but  of  this  he  never  breathed  a  word  to 
any  one,  as  he  tells  us  in  his  volume  of  reminiscences,  enti- 
tled Student  and  Singer.  "My  family  had  been  brought 
up,"  he  adds,  "with  the  Puritanical  notion  that  all  stage 
players,  singers,  and  such  like  were  no  better  than  they 
ought  to  be,  and  in  general  much  worse.  I  seldom  saw 
the  inside  of  a  theatre  before  I  was  seventeen  or  eighteen." 
He  did  get  music  lessons,  but  these  soon  became  irksome 
to  him,  because  they  took  up  time  he  wanted  to  devote  to 
recreation  after  school  hours.  His  dislike,  however,  was 
superficial;  one  day  he  heard  an  orchestra  in  church;  the 
effect  on  him  was  profound,  and  from  that  time  he  "  lived 
on  and  for  music." 

The  wonderful  art  of  the  German  bass,  Staudigl,  did 
much  to  arouse  his  musical  zeal  and  ambition.  "I  only 
heard  him  about  three  times,"  he  relates,  "and  those 
toward  the  end  of  his  career.  No  singer  has  ever  had 
such  a  peculiar  effect  on  me,  apart  from  his  singing.  Each 
time  he  stepped  on  the  platform  I  felt  a  thrill  run  through 
my  whole  body,  as  though  he  possessed  some  magnetic 
influence  over  me." 


226  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

The  greatest  disappointment  Santley  experienced 
throughout  life  was  the  lack  of  earnestness  and  the  abound- 
ing vanity  and  laziness  which  prevent  so  many  gifted  stu- 
dents from  reaching  the  top  of  the  ladder.  "Man  is  nat- 
urally vain  and  lazy,"  he  remarks,  "and  I  think  a  singer, 
to  become  a  real  artist,  has  to  make  a  harder  struggle 
against  these  natural  defects  than  the  followers  of  any 
other  art,  and  for  this  reason.  The  essential  natural 
qualification  for  a  singer  is  a  sonorous  voice  of  sympa- 
thetic quality;  the  unintellectual  public  is  satisfied  with  the 
sound  which  pleases  its  ear,  and  bestows  its  applause  irre- 
spective of  artistic  merit.  Vanity  and  laziness  step  in  and 
say,  'The  public  is  content,  the  money  rolls  in;  why  study 
more?'  Conscience  is  thrust  aside.  How  many  promis- 
ing young  artists  have  come  to  an  untimely  end  in  conse- 
quence! Yet  I  have  known  some  who,  when  the  voice  has 
begun  to  lose  its  charm,  roused  by  the  voice  of  conscience, 
with  determined  efforts  have  succeeded  in  making  Art 
a  more  than  efficient  substitute  for  the  magic  of  a  fresh 
voice." 

Fortunately,  Mr.  Santley  himself  had  the  energy  and 
the  capacity  for  hard  work  needful  for  reaching  the  high- 
est rungs  of  the  ladder.  His  father  gave  him  money  enough 
to  study  and  experiment  for  a  time  in  Italy,  where  his  ex- 
periences were,  however,  rather  doleful  and  discouraging. 
On  his  return  to  England  he  sang  for  HuUah,  who  told 
him:  "You  have  still  a  great  deal  to  learn";  upon  which 
Santley  comments:  "It  is  now  thirty-four  years  since  the 
observation  was  made,  and  I  find  I  have  still  a  great  deal 
to  learn,  so  I  am  convinced  Hullah  was  right." 

He  learned  much  about  this  time  from  the  greatest  of  all 
singing-masters,  Manuel  Garcia.  Students  whose  teach- 
ers inflict  on  them  a  lot  of  anatomical  jargon  will  be  inter- 
ested to  hear  Santley  on  this  point.  Garcia,  he  says, 
''taught  singing,  not  surgery!    I  was  a  pupil  of  his  in  1858, 


CHARLES   SANTLEY  227 

and  a  friend  of  his  while  he  lived,  and  in  all  the  conversa- 
tions I  had  with  him,  I  never  heard  him  say  a  word  about 
the  larynx  or  pharynx,  glottis,  or  any  other  organ  used  in 
the  production  and  emission  of  the  voice";  and  Santley 
adds  his  own  opinion,  that  the  less  pupils  know  about  the 
construction  of  the  vocal  organs,  the  better. 

Mr.  Santley  does  not  credit  the  foolish  remark  attrib- 
uted to  Rossini,  that  the  three  main  requisites  of  a  singer 
are  "voice,  voice,  and  voice,"  but  thinks  the  anecdote  has 
done  much  harm  in  encouraging  pupils  with  "voices"  to 
shirk  work.  If  he  himself  were  questioned  as  to  the  three 
requisites,  he  would  answer:  "Patience!  patience!  pa- 
tience!" Apparently,  the  teacher  needs  this  as  much  as  the 
pupil,  for,  in  his  opinion,  "a  singing-master  has  the  most 
trying  task  of  all  teachers."  Of  his  colleagues  he  has  no 
high  opinion;  most  of  them  do  not  know  the  difference 
between  the  "production"  and  the  "emission"  of  the 
voice;  most  of  them  launch  their  pupils  too  soon  into  the 
study  of  difficult  music;  and  as  for  enunciation,  their 
pupils  may  be  heard  any  day  singing,  "Ow,  de-ah,  now!" 
for  "  Oh,  dear,  no,"  and  that  sort  of  thing. 

During  his  career  as  a  singer  Mr.  Santley  suffered  much 
from  the  defective  acoustics  of  theatres  and  halls.  A  good 
deal  has  been  written  regarding  the  fact  that  in  some  parts 
of  an  auditorium  the  audience  may  hear  much  better  than 
in  others;  on  this  Mr.  Santley  dwells  (in  his  book,  The 
Art  oj  Singing  and  Vocal  Declamation^  which  he  issued  at 
the  ripe  age  of  seventy-four);  but  he  also  presents  the 
artist's  side  of  the  plaint.  Why,  he  asks,  was  he  able  to  go 
through  his  work  in  perfect  comfort  in  one  place,  while  in 
another  he  was  glad  to  land  safe  at  the  end  ?  He  inveighs 
against  the  primitive  waiting  rooms,  which  are  respon- 
sible frequently  for  sudden  impairment  of  voice  and  dis- 
appointment of  the  audience.  He  also  dwells  at  consider- 
able length  on  the  danger  of  having  flowers  in  the  artist's 


228  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

room  or  in  drawing-rooms  where  artists  are  expected  to 
sing.  Close  observation  showed  that  he  was  often  attacked 
with  hoarseness  when  there  were  flowers  in  the  room,  and 
was  relieved  as  soon  as  they  were  removed.  Tobacco,  on 
the  other  hand,  soothed  his  throat.  Nor  will  he  admit 
that  these  are  personal  idiosyncrasies;  but  it  is  a  fact  that 
to  the  throats  of  many  singers  tobacco  is  injurious. 

In  the  same  valuable  book  Santley  dwells  on  the  fatal 
effect  of  drinking  or  eating  to  excess;  many  promising 
careers  have  been  ended  prematurely  by  such  indulgence. 
He  declares  he  has  never  yet  "encountered  a  great  artist 
who  led  a  Bohemian  life,  or  was  unsystematic  in  his  work." 

Santley's  successes  and  failures  are  recounted  at  length 
in  his  memoirs.  He  achieved  distinction  in  both  Italian 
and  English  opera,  as  well  as  in  oratorio,  and  in  ballads 
and  other  concert  songs.  A  writer  in  the  London  Spectator 
says  that  "Mr.  Edward  Lloyd,  admirable  singer,  musician, 
and  artist,  never  ventured  on  either  French  or  German  and 
was  rarely  heard  in  Italian.  These  languages,  so  indis- 
pensable to  an  interpreter  of  the  best  music,  had  no  terrors 
for  Santley,  who  added  to  them  a  proficiency  so  rare  in  the 
benighted  Sassenach,  in  the  Irish  brogue.  Brahms  used 
to  say  of  Stockhausen  that  he  was  the  best  musician  of  all 
the  singers.  Adapting  this  appreciation,  we  may  safely 
say  that  Mr.  Santley  was  the  best  musician  among  British 
male  singers  of  his  generation."  "He  always  gave  of  his 
best;  whatever  he  did,  he  did  with  his  might."  "If  we 
were  asked  what  was  the  quality  in  Mr.  Santley's  singing 
which  more  than  anything  else  had  endeared  him  to  the 
British  public,  we  should  be  inclined  to  say  that  it  was 
manliness."  "He  embodied  the  best  national  qualities 
more  thoroughly  and  successfully  than  any  of  his  con- 
temporaries." 

"His  chief  achievement,"  in  the  opinion  of  the  London 
Musical  World  J  "  was  the  creation  of  the  part  of  the  Dutch- 


VICTOR  MAUREL  229 

man  in  the  first  performance  of  any  of  Wagner's  operas  in 
this  country.  But  England  was  not  yet  ripe  for  Wagner, 
and  the  failure  of  the  work  deprived  us  of  the  opportunity 
of  seeing  the  great  artist  in  any  more  of  Wagner's  creations. 
But  for  this  we  might  perhaps  have  had  an  unrivalled 
Telramund  and  Wolfram  and  Sachs.  .  .  .  During  his 
connection  with  the  Carl  Rosa  Company  he  made  a  very 
great  success  with  that  very  part  of  the  Dutchman  which 
six  years  before  had  been  a  total  failure  in  Italian." 

Distinct  enunciation  and  the  power  of  varying  the  tone- 
color  were  among  his  good  qualities.  He  "made  his  sing- 
ing of  songs  as  dramatic  as  if  they  were  scenes  on  the 
stage,"  writes  Mr.  Fuller  Maitland.  He  was  particularly 
admired  in  Elijah — "  What  do  you  think  of  the  Prophet — 
what  sort  of  a  man  was  he?"  Sims  Reeves  said  to  Ffrang- 
con  Davies,  when  he  came  to  him  to  study  the  part;  and 
in  that  spirit  Santley  interpreted  this  music — a  spirit  which 
takes  us  miles  away  from  the  antics  of  those  soloists  who, 
as  he  remarks,  seem  to  try  to  ''get  through"  the  recitatives 
as  fast  as  they  can,  in  order  to  come  to  the  "tune."  * 

Victor  Maurel 

"Jt  is  not  enough  you  should  know  your  own  part,  you 
ought  to  make  yourself  well  acquainted  with  the  whole 
drama  in  which  you  are  a  figure,"  wrote  Mr.  Santley. 

The  eminent  French  baritone,  Victor  Maurel,  carried 
out  this  principle  with  astonishing  thoroughness.  In  his 
book,  Dix  Ans  de  Carrier e,  one  hundred  pages  are  devoted 
to  an  analysis  of  all  the  roles  in  Verdi's  Otello  and  of  the 
staging  of  this  opera  in  every  minute  detail.  It  is  a  drama- 
turgic masterpiece. 

Verdi  called  Maurel  "the  incomparable  lago."    When 

*  See  also  his  remarks  on  the  "histrionic  exigencies"  of  Elijah,  in  his 
Student  and  Singer,  pp.  16S-170, 


230  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

he  staged  his  Otello  at  Milan,  in  1887,  he  could  find  no 
Italian  artist  in  whom  he  had  confidence  for  this  part;  and 
when  he  wrote  his  Falstafj  he  again  called  upon  Victor 
Maurel  as  the  vocalist-actor  most  competent  to  carry  out 
the  refined  principles  of  his  mature  style.  For  fifteen  years 
these  two  men  worked  together,  and  their  influence  on 
Italian  and  French  opera  and  operatic  representation 
created  a  new  epoch. 

When  Verdi  wrote  his  first  operas  he  thought  only  of 
tunes  and  beautiful  singing,  the  dramatic  side  of  the  work 
being  of  minor  importance.  It  was  the  custom  of  the  time. 
In  the  same  way,  Victor  Maurel  began  his  career  as  a 
''star"  in  the  old  sense  of  the  word.  He  was  born  at 
Marseilles,  studied  at  the  Paris  Conservatoire,  where 
he  won  several  prizes,  and  made  his  d^but  at  the  Op^ra 
in  the  r61e  of  the  Count,  in  II  Trovatore.  From  Paris 
he  went  to  Italy,  then  to  England,  and  soon  he  was  a  man 
of  international  fame. 

In  London  an  incident  occurred  which  had  an  impor- 
tant effect  on  his  career.  As  he  was  practising  in  his  hotel 
one  morning,  the  door  of  his  room  was  opened  suddenly 
and  a  stranger  appeared.  "We  are  neighbors,"  he  said; 
"  I  live  on  the  top  floor  of  the  hotel,  and  I  also  am  an  artist, 
a  poor  painter.  Every  morning  I  hear  you  singing,  you 
give  me  the  most  extraordinary  sensations.  Your  voice 
enters  my  room  like  a  ray  of  sunshine.  I  have  bought  a 
seat  for  to-morrow  to  hear  you  in  William  Tell,  I  shall 
salute  you  after  the  performance." 

For  a  time  Mr.  Maurel  saw  no  more  of  his  unceremo- 
nious visitor,  but  one  day  he  met  him  on  the  street.  "  Why 
did  you  not  come  to  see  me?"  said  the  singer;  **did  you 
not  hear  me  in  William  Tell?'^  "I  did,"  said  the  painter 
coldly.  ''Well?"  "Well,  I  was  greatly  disappointed. 
Doubtless  you  have  an  admirable  voice,  and  you  are  a 
great  singer,  but  you  are  not  yet  an  artist;  you  do  not  at  all 


VICTOR  MAUREL  231 

give  the  impression  0}  the  character  0}  the  rude  mountaineer, 
the  fearless  hunter. ^^ 

This  criticism  set  Maurel  thinking.  It  opened  his  eyes 
to  the  fact  that  there  are  two  sides  to  an  operatic  perform- 
er's art,  one  of  which  he  had  neglected.  He  studied  the  art 
of  acting,  and  when  he  appeared  in  Paris  as  Hamlet,  in 
1879,  "it  was  no  longer  a  singer  who  pretended  to  be 
Hamlet,  it  was  a  Hamlet  who  sang."  Had  he  remained, 
like  so  many  of  his  colleagues,  a  vox  et  preterea  nihil,  he 
would  now  be  forgotten,  like  them.  But  he  had  entered 
on  a  new  career,  the  career  of  an  opera  singer  who  could 
"get  inside  the  skin  of  a  character,"  an  artist  who  could 
act  and  paint  with  the  voice.  There  lies  the  secret  of  his 
great  success. 

On  October  31,  1892,  Verdi  wrote  to  Maurel  an  ex- 
tremely interesting  letter,  which  shows  how  the  greatest  of 
Italian  opera  composers  had  come  in  his  old  days  to  hold 
the  same  opinions  that  Wagner  had  always  preached  re- 
garding the  relations  between  text  and  music,  and  the 
manner  in  which  the  singers  should  approach  their  task. 
Here  is  the  letter,  in  part:  "You  must  have  received  from 
Milan  the  libretto  of  Falstaff.  You  will  receive  your 
musical  r61e  as  soon  as  I  have  composed  it.  Study  the 
lines  and  words  of  the  libretto,  work  over  them  as  much  as 
you  feel  inclined  to;  but  do  not  occupy  yourself  too  much 
with  the  music.  Let  not  this  advice  seem  strange  to  you! 
If  the  music  has  the  desired  traits,  if  the  character  of  the 
r61e  is  well  understood,  if  the  word-accent  is  properly 
placed,  the  music  comes  of  itself,  and  is  born,  as  it  were, 
spontaneously." 

Here  we  have  Wagner's  theory  of  dramatic  vocalism 
stated  in  almost  his  own  language.  And  Verdi  not  only 
adopted  it  in  this  last  opera  of  his,  but  emphasized  his  new 
stand-point  by  taking  his  librettist,  Botto,  along  to  assist  at 
the  rehearsals.    Here  was  an  innovation  in  Italian  opera! 


232  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

In  the  good  old  times  the  librettist  had  supplied  merely 
the  pegs  for  the  composer's  airs;  now  he  was  taken  along 
to  the  theatre  to  see  to  it  that  the  play  no  less  than  the 
music  was  properly  presented. 

Among  M.  Maurel's  literary  productions  none  is  more 
valuable  than  an  article  entitled  "My  Relations  with 
Sainte-Beuve,"  an  English  version  of  which  was  printed 
in  the  Boston  Musical  Record.  In  it  the  singer  relates  how, 
many  years  ago,  that  great  critic  predicted  the  lines  on 
which  the  opera  and  opera  singers  would  develop.  He 
believed  that  the  taste  for  glitter  to  which  Meyerbeer's 
librettist.  Scribe,  had  accustomed  the  public  would  change; 
that  Wagner's  principles  would  triumph,  in  so  far  as  the 
public  would  no  longer  go  to  the  opera  simply  to  hear  airs; 
and  that,  in  consequence,  there  would  be  need  of  singers 
with  higher  thoughts  and  a  more  complete  knowledge  of 
their  art.  To  Maurel  he  said:  ''You  have  come  twenty 
years  too  soon,"  and  Maurel  says  he  has  had  the  most 
varied  proofs  of  the  truthfulness  of  this  speech.  He  has 
now  been  a  public  singer  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century. 
Were  he  nearer  the  beginning  of  his  career,  he  would  like 
to  sing  Hans  Sachs  and  Wotan  in  a  dramatic  fashion  that, 
according  to  his  ideas,  has  not  yet  been  known.  He  feels 
grateful  to  Gevaert  for  interesting  him  in  Gluck;  "to  know 
Gluck  was  by  anticipation  to  know  Wagner,  to  be  in  a 
position  to  divine  Verdi!"  The  fifteen  years  of  association 
and  collaboration  with  Verdi  are  what  M.  Maurel 
looks  back  to  as  the  brightest  spots  in  his  career,  which 
allowed  him  to  come  nearest  to  his  own  ideal  of  dramatic 
song. 

How  admirably  Maurel  succeeded  from  the  start  in 
carrying  out  Verdi's  intentions  is  shown  by  that  great 
master's  remarks  in  a  letter  after  the  first  performance  of 
Otello:  "The  art  of  Maurel  is  really  immense.  ...  I 
do  not  know  whether  to  admire  most  the  singer  or  the 


VICTOR  MAUREL  233 

interpreter — when  he  sings  his  best,  he  makes  one  forget 
that  he  is  singing^ 

The  same  was  true,  as  we  have  seen,  of  Emma  Calv^. 
What  a  lucky  chance  that  this  wonderful  artist  became  a 
pupil  of  Maurel  at  the  beginning  of  her  career !  And  what 
a  lucky  chance,  again,  that  the  American  Calve,  Geraldine 
Farrar,  heard  Faust,  with  Calve,  before  any  other  opera  or 
opera  singer!  That  performance  influenced  her  whole 
career.  She,  too,  belongs  to  the  Maurel  school,  not  only 
because  of  this,  but  because  she  learned  much  at  Monte 
Carlo  of  Maurice  Renaud,  who  based  his  art  on  what  he 
learned  by  seeing  and  hearing  Victor  Maurel. 

When  Verdi  produced  his  early  opera  Rigoletto,  Victor 
Hugo  was  angry  because  his  consent  had  not  been  asked 
for  using  his  play  {Le  Roi  s^ amuse)  as  a  libretto.  But  after 
the  poet  had  heard  this  opera  in  Paris  he  wrote:  "I  am 
anxious  to  meet  the  man  who  has  rendered  by  sounds  the 
sentiments  and  passions  which  it  has  been  so  difficult  for 
the  greatest  actors  to  render  by  words.  .  .  .  Victor 
Maurel  reconciled  me  to  Verdi's  opera." 

In  these  words  Victor  Hugo  practically  concedes  the 
superior  power  of  dramatic  song  over  dramatic  speech, 
which  is  the  fundamental  thesis  of  Wagnerism.  On  this 
point  Maurel  discourses  eloquently  in  his  Dix  Ans  de 
Carriere  in  a  chapter  on  *'L'Enseignement  de  I'Art  du 
Chant."  "When  we  associate  music  with  words,  we  ex- 
press the  movements  of  the  soul  with  greater  power,"  he 
concludes. 

But  it  is  not  an  easy  art !  "  We  can  laugh,"  he  continues, 
"and  jump,  and  cry  out  for  a  moment  without  losing 
breath,  in  life  or  even  on  the  stage  when  we  have  to  do 
with  spoken  words  only.  But  it  is  far  from  easy  to  learn 
the  art  of  laughing,  crying  out,  and  making  other  sounds 
all  at  a  fixed  pitch  and  a  prescribed  pace,  now  fast,  now 
slow,  and  with  varying  degrees  of  intenseness;  now  loud, 


234  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

now  soft,  but  always  sustained,  and  to  keep  it  up  for  hours 
— and  all  this,  mind  you,  rhythmically." 

The  French  tenor,  Albert  Saleza,  was  so  impressed  by 
these  difficulties  that  he  declared  that  "no  singer,  unless 
he  have  the  extraordinary  physical  strength  of  a  Tamagno, 
should  attempt  the  almost  impossible  feat  of  being,  in  the 
full  sense  of  the  words,  both  an  actor  and  a  singer." 

But  Saleza  was  behind  the  times.  We  come  now  to 
another  French  baritone  who,  like  Maurel,  is,  in  the  full 
sense  of  the  words,  both  an  actor  and  a  singer,  and  of 
whom  Verdi  might  have  said,  what  he  said  of  Maurel: 
"When  he  sings  his  best,  he  makes  one  forget  that  he  is 
singing" — which  is  the  highest  compliment  that  can  be 
paid  an  operatic  artist. 

Maurice  Renaud 

If  Oscar  Hammerstein  had  achieved  no  other  notable 
result  by  giving  New  York  a  second  opera-house  than  to 
provide  an  opportunity  to  enjoy  the  vocal  and  histrionic 
art  of  M.  Renaud,  he  would  still  deserve  an  honorable 
place  in  the  history  of  operatic  music  in  America.  As  long 
as  Geraldine  Farrar  is  at  the  Metropolitan  and  Maurice 
Renaud  at  the  Manhattan,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  better  and 
subtler  acting  can  be  seen  on  our  operatic  stage  than  in 
the  theatre. 

While  under  the  spell  of  M.  Renaud' s  imaginative  art, 
most  spectators  would  guess  that  he  had  been  an  actor 
before  he  became  a  singer;  for  few  singers  have  ever  be- 
stowed so  much  attention  on  the  minute  details  of  make- 
up and  action;  yet  this  great  Frenchman  came  to  the  stage 
primarily  as  a  singer. 

He  was  born  at  Bordeaux  in  1862.  His  first  great  am- 
bition was  to  excel  as  a  writer  of  novels  and  poems;  but 
soon  he  decided  that  that  was  not  his  sphere  after  all,  and 


MAURICE  RENAUD  235 

went  to  the  Paris  Conservatoire,  where  he  trained  his 
voice  for  a  year.  Then  he  went  to  Brussels,  where  he  was 
engaged  at  the  Theatre  de  la  Monnaie.  He  made  his 
operatic  d^but  on  that  stage  in  1883,  as  a  priest  of  Odin, 
in  Reyer's  Sigurd.  Seven  years  later  he  accepted  an  en- 
gagement at  the  Grand  Op^ra,  in  Paris,  which  thence- 
forth remained  his  head-quarters,  although  he  often  sang 
in  London,  too,  and  at  Monte  Carlo,  St.  Petersburg,  and 
in  Italian  cities.  In  1906-7  he  joined  the  Manhattan 
Opera  House  Company,  of  which  he  came  gradually  to  be 
acknowledged  the  most  consummate  artist. 

Maurice  Renaud  is  one  of  the  few  baritones  who  have 
won  an  artistic  and  popular  success  equal  to  that  of  world- 
famed  tenors.  He  owes  this  success  in  about  equal  shares 
to  his  vocal  art,  his  histrionic  instincts,  his  skill  in  make-up, 
his  personality,  his  versatility,  and  hjs  infinite  capacity  for 
taking  pains.  He  is  a  remarkably  handsome  man — in 
Paris  he  has  been  long  known  as  *4e  beau  Renaud" — 
and  that  also  may  be  mentioned  as  a  helpful  factor  in  such 
rdles  as  Don  Giovanni,  Wolfram,  Escamillo,  Athanael, 
Herod  (in  Massenet's  opera) ;  but  he  is  no  less  delectable  in 
parts  which,  like  Rigoletto,  the  Jew  peddler  in  The  Tales  of 
Hoffmann^  Beckmesser,  Falstaff,  are  the  very  negation  of 
beauty.  If  we  add  to  this  list  of  parts  Mefistofele,  in  Ber- 
lioz's Damnation  of  Faust,  Telramund,  Scarpia,  Hamlet, 
Nelusko,  Flying  Dutchman,  we  get  some  idea  of  his  re- 
markable versatility. 

Concerning  his  singing,  Mr.  W.  J.  Henderson  has  truly 
remarked  that  "such  is  his  intelligence,  his  taste,  and  his 
exquisite  adjustment  of  means  that  he  gives  the  real  con- 
noisseurs of  singing  far  more  delight  than  many  others 
who  project  into  the  auditorium  tones  of  more  glorious 
quality." 

At  one  time  he  lost  his  voice  completely  for  some  months, 
and  it  was  several  years  before  he  got  it  back  fully  under 


236  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

his  control — an  experience  not  a  few  vocalists  have  gone 
through,  as  we  shall  see  in  a  later  chapter.  In  his  case  the 
voice  recovered  all  its  former  charm,  and  its  effectiveness 
was  increased  by  his  more  mature  art  of  singing. 

He  is  one  of  the  few  artists  who  can  make  recitative  as 
interesting  and  expressive  as  melody,  and  as  there  is  a  good 
deal  of  recitative  in  ,Mozart's  and  other  old  operas,  this 
means  much  in  the  way  of  entertainment.  Most  other 
singers  make  one  wish  the  recitatives  were  cut  out  alto- 
gether. When  Renaud  sings,  no  oneis  ever  bored — and 
this  is  another  secret  of  his  success^^ 

No  factor  in  his  composite  art  is  more  talked  about  and 
admired  than  his  extraordinary  skill  in  transforming  his 
face  and  general  aspect.  One  can  study  his  assumed 
features  like  a  portrait  by  a  great  master  and  regret  that 
it  should  be  made  for  the  moment  only.  His  make-up  is 
never  twice  quite  the  same,  no  matter  what  pains  he  may 
take  to  make  it  so,  and  he  sometimes  spoils  it,  as  he  in- 
formed me,  and  has  to  start  in  all  over  again,  for  it  is  never 
successful  when  patched  up.  It  takes  him  an  hour  and  a 
half  to  "make  his  head"  for  Athanael  (in  Thais) ^  with  the 
beard,  which  goes  on  in  several  pieces  and  which  must  be 
filled  in  with  pencilling.  He  and  M.  Gilibert  hold  that  a 
class  should  be  established  in  the  conservatories  to  teach 
this  important  branch  of  the  operatic  art;  and  yet  each  face 
must  be  a  law  unto  itself,  for  hollows  and  elevations  have  a 
curiously  opposite  effect  on  the  colors,  and  when  one  color 
would  be  used  to  produce  a  high  light  on  one  spot  it  would 
cause  a  shadow  on  another. 

As  an  actor,  M.  Renaud  is  a  realist,  yet  he  avoids  ex- 
aggeration, theatricalness,  and  vulgarity.  As  Mr.  Hender- 
son— who  seldom  praises  anybody — has  remarked:  "He 
refines  the  most  brutal  operatic  street  type  and  makes 
of  it  a  picture  fit  for  a  royal  gallery.  Yet  he  sacrifices 
no  jot  of  the  fundamental  character.     He  is  the  quin- 


MAURICE  RENAUD  237 

tessence  of  French  accomplishment  in  the  methods  of  the 
theatre." 

His  Rigoletto  is  a  case  in  point.  No  other  artist  has 
equalled  him  in  the  natural  delineation  of  the  physically 
and  mentally  deformed  jester  who  assists  the  licentious 
Duke  in  securing  victims  and  is  punished  by  finding  his 
own  daughter  one  of  them.  The  play  of  his  features, 
when  Monterone  is  cursing  him  for  his  wicked  abetting  of 
the  Duke's  crimes,  will  never  be  forgotten  by  those  who 
have  been  so  lucky  as  to  see  it;  and  no  less  vivid  and 
natural  is  the  portrayal  of  his  one  noble  trait — his  love  for 
his  daughter  and  his  suffering  at  her  ruin  and  death. 
He  makes  the  audience  share  all  the  emotions  of  tortured 
paternal  love — how  infinitely  pathetic  and  tear-compelling 
he  looks,  with  his  gray  head  bowed  as  he  kneels  begging 
the  courtiers  help  him  save  his  daughter! — of  ecstasy  at 
sight  of  the  daughter — of  revengeful  rage  and  hate  toward 
the  man  who  had  ruined  her.  The  darkness  of  the  stage 
in  the  last  act  makes  it  difficult  to  follow  every  expression 
of  his  face,  but  his  hands,  his  whole  body,  have  an  elo- 
quence that  partly  compensates  for  that  loss.  And  his 
voice — what  color,  what  feeling,  what  beauty  in  that, 
too!  It  is  as  emotional  as  his  face — what  more  could  be 
said? 

There  was  a  time  when  operatic  audiences  cared  for 
nothing  but  beautiful  singing.  How  completely  their 
attitude  has  changed  was  shown  by  the  preference  given 
in  1908-9  at  the  Manhattan  Opera  House  for  the 
Rigoletto  of  M.  Renaud  to  that  of  Mr.  Sammarco,  who 
has  a  more  mellow  voice  but  lacks  his  rival's  gifts  as  an 
actor.  M.  Renaud,  indeed,  succeeded  in  making  his  r61e 
the  most  important  one  in  the  opera,  no  matter  by  what 
famous  prima  donna  and  tenor  the  parts  of  Gilda  and  the 
Duke  were  sung.  Modern  opera  is  a  composite  art,  and 
the  most  successful  artist  is  likely  to  be  he  whose  art  is 


238  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

equally  composite.  Renaud  is  among  baritones  what 
Jean  de  Reszke  is  among  tenors. 

Massenet's  Jongleur  de  Notre  Dame  is  another  opera  in 
which  Renaud  centres  attention  on  himself  by  his  super- 
lative art.  He  is  only  a  monastery  cook — but  what  a  cook! 
There  is  always  a  great  outburst  of  applause  when  he  rides 
on  the  stage  on  his  donkey,  a  jolly,  fat  moon-faced  monk, 
laden  with  flowers.  His  unctuous  praise  of  the  old  Macon 
wine,  his  funny  change  from  the  reverence  of  the  Bene- 
dicite  to  the  more  important  matter  of  dining  bring  laugh- 
ter from  the  whole  house,  and  his  earnest  sorting  and 
preparation  of  the  carrots  and  cauliflowers  in  the  second 
act  suggests  a  picture  by  Tenier.  The  climax  of  this  part 
is,  however,  his  delivery  of  the  narrative  of  the  sage  brush 
opening  to  hide  the  Christ  Child.  Here  his  eyes  are  a 
study  of  tenderness,  human  and  divine,  and  his  smile  when 
the  child  is  safe  illumines  his  homely  cook-face  to  a  kind 
of  unearthly  beauty.  His  delivery  of  this  narrative  is  one 
of  the  most  superb  specimens  of  dramatic  vocalism  ever 
heard  on  the  stage.  Renaud  is  such  a  wonderful  actor  that 
one  sometimes  forgets  that  he  is  equally  great  as  a  singer 
till  a  number  like  Marie  avec  Venjant  Jesus  forcibly  re- 
minds one  of  that  fact. 

Of  his  versatility  he  gives  the  most  amazing  proof  in 
Offenbach's  Tales  0}  Hoffmann,  in  which,  again,  he  is  the 
observed  of  all  observers  from  start  to  finish.  It  seems  in- 
credible that  any  man  should  be  able  to  change  himself,  as 
he  does,  from  a  most  extraordinarily  misshapen,  bent,  and 
dwarfed  Jew  peddler,  with  an  amusingly  life-like  Alsatian 
accent,  in  the  first  act,  to  the  elegant,  polished,  and  strangely 
handsome  but  evil  and  cynical  Venetian  gentleman,  in  the 
second  act,  and,  once  more,  in  the  third,  to  the  thin,  tall, 
weird,  sinister,  diabohcal  Dr.  Miracle.  In  this  part  the 
hands  are  perhaps  the  most  hideously  impressive  part  of 
him — the  fiendish,  hypnotic  claws  with  which  he  draws 


MAURICE  RENAUD  239 

his  victim  to  him.  His  interview  with  the  spirit  of  the 
poor  child  he  has  placed  on  a  chair  is  so  uncanny  as  to 
make  one  shudder.* 

The  three  characters  enacted  by  Renaud  in  The  Tales 
0}  Hoffmann  are  really  three  aspects  of  the  arch-fiend. 
Another  aspect  of  Mephistopheles  is  presented  in  Berlioz's 
La  Damnation  de  Faust,  an  impersonation  utterly  different 
from  that  which  has  been  made  conventional  in  the  oper- 
atic world.  In  this  devil,  as  presented  by  Renaud,  there  is 
not  a  trace  of  humor,  no  sardonic  grin,  no  apparent  mal- 
ice. He  enmeshes  his  victim  with  the  sang-froid  of  a  huge 
spider.  Pale,  emaciated,  hollow-eyed,  he  pursues  his  plan 
solemnly,  and  the  spectator  follows  his  every  gesture  and 
change  of  facial  expression  with  keen  interest.  A  weary, 
listless  devil  he  seems  on  the  surface,  yet  there  is  a  subtle 
undertone  of  diabolical  craft  and  cunning.  Not  for  a 
second  can  one  take  one's  eyes  off  his  face,  his  hands,  his 
body,  without  losing  some  significant  detail. 

Renaud' s  gift  of  transformation  is  sometimes  revealed 
in  conversation  as  strikingly  as  on  the  stage.  One  day  he 
was  speaking  of  a  small  role  he  had  taken  in  Le  Cloun — 
the  r61e  of  an  Apache,  a  Parisian  voyou,  or  street  boy, 

*  In  this  opera  another  French  baritone,  who  really  deserves  a  whole 
chapter  in  this  book,  M.  Charles  Gilibert,  gives  an  instructive  and 
amusing  illustration  of  what  a  great  artist  can  do  toward  enlivening  a 
scene.  Quite  the  funniest  thing  in  the  opera  is  his  pretended  harp- 
playing  while  the  automaton  sings.  It  is  not  the  careless,  aimless  playing 
such  as  the  Minnesingers  in  Tannhduser,  for  instance,  indulge  in.  The 
tones,  of  course,  come  from  the  orchestra,  but  in  every  subtle  motion  of 
plucking  the  strings  or  gliding  over  them  he  seems  to  do  all  the  playing. 
M.  Gilibert  is  one  of  those  up-to-date  baritones  who  have  shown  that 
there  is  no  diflference  between  major  and  minor  r61es.  He  puts  as  much 
of  his  art  into  a  part  like  this,  or  that  of  Monterone,  in  Rigoletto,  as  he  does 
into  that  of  the  Father,  in  Louise,  which  is  one  of  the  most  masterful  and 
moving  impersonations  on  the  stage,  or  his  incomparably  funny  Mazetto, 
in  Don  Giovanni.  Mme.  Gilibert,  who  is  also  an  artist,  once  remarked 
to  me,  truly:  "There  are  no  minor  roles,  but  only  minor  artists  who  fail 
to  rise  to  their  opportunities."  """^         ^ 


240  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

when  suddenly,  with  a  sinking  of  his  body  and  an  ugly 
forward  thrust  of  his  head,  he  gave  an  instantaneous 
picture  of  the  sullen  street  gamin — sullen,  yet  full  of  a 
wicked  fun.  It  was  a  startling  histrionic  feat,  this  extraor- 
dinary change  of  an  elegant  gentleman  into  a  low  hood- 
lum by  means  of  two  gestures,  and  made  one  long  to  see 
him  in  his  whole  repertory.  No  matter  how  dull  an  opera 
might  be,  he  would  make  it  interesting. 

Speaking  of  Massenet's  Thats,  in  his  Chapters  of  Opera, 
Mr.  H.  E.  Krehbiel  declares  that  its  remarkable  success  in 
New  York  was  due  much  more  to  M.  Renaud  than  to  his 
fair  companion.  It  was  certainly  due  quite  as  much  to 
him  as  to  Miss  Garden.  In  this  opera  he  impersonates  the 
monk  Athanael,  who  leaves  the  monastery  in  the  desert  to 
save  the  soul  of  the  notorious  Alexandrian  courtesan  Thais. 
In  the  early  scenes  he  is  every  inch  the  saint — stem,  im- 
pulsive for  his  cause,  fanatical  in  pursuance  of  his  pur- 
pose. Every  movement  of  those  marvellously  beautiful 
and  soulful  eyes  is  eloquent  of  spirituality.  Even  more 
impressive  is  the  gradual  change  from  the  saint  to  the 
sinner  in  thought,  from  the  monk  to  the  man.  His  cer- 
tainty of  conquering  the  worse  nature  of  the  priestess  of 
Venus  and  his  joy  at  his  victory  are  marvellously  expressed 
in  voice  and  face,  but  still  more  intense  is  his  anguish  when 
he  has  to  leave  her  at  the  convent  gate,  and  his  heart- 
broken "7^  ne  la  verrai  plus.^^  When  he  returns  to  the 
dying  Thais  to  implore  her  to  become  a  sinner  again, 
he  looks  as  if  he  had  been  through  the  tortures  of  the 
damned. 

There  is  a  suggestion  of  Parsifal  in  Massenet's  music, 
and  more  than  a  trace  of  it  in  Renaud's  Athanael.  Were 
he  a  tenor,  what  a  Parsifal  he  would  make! — a  Parsifal 
such  as  Bayreuth  has  never  seen.  Those  who  have  heard 
his  Beckmesser,  his  Wolfram,  his  Flying  Dutchman, 
declare  that  in  these  Wagnerian  parts  he  surpasses  all 


MAURICE  RENAUD  241 

rivals.  But  of  that  I  cannot  speak,  not  having  had  the 
good  fortune  to  see  him  in  those  roles. 

Probably  his  greatest  achievement  is  his  Don  Giovanni. 
Concerning  this  part  he  once  wrote  to  Mrs.  Finck:*  ''I 
have  worked  over  it  a  great  deal.  I  changed,  modified, 
completely  remodelled  the  part  several  times."  He  will 
hardly  succeed  in  further  improving  it.  In  my  critical  ex- 
perience of  nearly  thirty  years  I  can  recall  but  half  a 
dozen  impersonations  equal  to  it.  Lessing  says  that 
Homer  gave  a  better  idea  of  Helen's  beauty  by  noting  the 
impression  it  made  even  on  the  elders  than  he  could  have 
done  by  describing  it  minutely.  Perhaps,  in  the  same  way, 
Renaud's  Don  Giovanni  can  best  be  described  by  the  con- 
fession that  he  made  a  veteran  critic  tremble  with  delight 
and  excitement  throughout  the  last  act  of  Mozart's  opera. 

It  is  doubtful  if  any  artist  ever  succeeded  in  presenting 
that  Spanish  cavalier  in  so  life-like  a  manner.  He  is  the 
very  embodiment  of  the  dashing,  gallant,  reckless,  wanton 
lady-killer;  when  Leporello  shows  one  of  his  victims  the 
list  of  his  "thousand-and- three"  conquests,  no  one  won- 
ders, after  looking  at  that  splendid  specimen  of  audacious 
manhood.  He  appears  in  six  different  costumes  during  the 
several  acts,  and  it  would  take  a  jury  of  women  to  decide 
in  which  he  looks  handsomest.  But  that  is  a  mere  detail. 
Don  Giovanni  is  a  busy  man  throughout  the  opera;  he 
not  only  conquers  women  and  girls,  but  fights  duels,  sings 
serenades,  teases  Mazetto,  invites  the  statue  of  the  man 
he  has  killed  to  supper,  and  dies  from  the  clasp  of  his  stone 
hand. 

It  is  in  these  last  scenes  with  the  ghost  of  the  Command- 
er in  particular  that  M.  Renaud  reveals  his  incomparable 
art.    In  the  cemetery,  when  the  statue  nods  and  accepts 

*  Her  article  on  his  career  and  his  art,  in  the  Century  Magazine  for 
February,  1909,  includes  hints  of  value  to  students,  especially  in  the  re- 
marks on  Falstaff.  Like  Geraldine  Farrar,  M.  Renaud  is  a  fiequenter  of 
art  galleries  for  purposes  of  study. 


242  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

the  invitation,  he  is  still  all  bravado,  and  ineffaceable  is 
the  picture  he  presents  when  he  leans  on  the  pedestal  and, 
half-insolently,  half-amusedly,  looks  up  at  the  speaking 
stone  man  on  the  stone  horse.  Even  when  the  ghost  enters 
the  banquet  hall  and  the  girls  have  fled  and  Leporello  has 
crawled  under  the  table,  he  keeps  up  his  insolent  courage 
for  a  time;  yet,  before  he  dares  to  put  his  hand  into  that 
of  the  stone  man  he  fortifies  himself  with  one  more  drink 
of  wine,  which  he  pours  from  a  golden  vessel  into  a  golden 
cup. 

These  are  a  few  details  out  of  hundreds  equally  fascinat- 
ing.   Is  it  a  wonder  that  Maurice  Renaud  has  succeeded  ? 

LUDWIG  WtJLLNER 

An  amazing  feat  was  accomplished  in  the  cities  of  the 
United  States  in  the  season  of  1908-9 — the  feat  of  mak- 
ing classical  German  lieder  as  popular  as  musical  comedy 
"hits." 

The  man  who  performed  this  miracle  was  Dr.  Ludwig 
Wullner.  And  the  most  astonishing  thing  about  it  was 
that  he  came  heralded  as  *'  the  singei  without  a  voice." 

Concerning  his  first  recital  in  New  York,  on  November 
15,  1908,  I  wrote  in  the  Evening  Post: 

If  any  one  not  knowing  what  was  going  on  at  Mendels- 
sohn Hall  on  Saturday  afternoon  had  approached  the 
auditorium  just  after  Dr.  Ludwig  Wullner  had  finished 
one  of  his  songs,  he  would  have  felt  sure  that  Caruso  or 
some  other  operatic  idol  must  have  been  singing,  so  demon- 
strative and  persistent  was  the  applause.  He  has  neither 
the  beautiful  voice  of  Caruso  nor  his  art  of  singing.  In 
Italian  opera  he  would  be  as  lamentable  a  failure  as — well, 
as  Caruso  would  be  if  he  tried  to  sing  Schubert's  Erlking 
or  Doppelgaenger,  as  Wullner  sang  them  on  Saturday. 
Did  it  occur  to  any  one  of  those  who  heard  these  wonder- 


LUDWIG  WULLNER  243 

ful  interpretations  that  the  singer  had  "no  voice"?  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  he  has  a  voice  which  is  quite  agreeable, 
except  when  he  has  to  force  it  to  get  tones  not  easily  within 
his  reach ;  but  the  mere  voice  seemed  as  nothing  compared  to 
the  art  with  which  he  laid  bare  the  very  soul  of  those  songs. 
Not  even  Lilli  Lehmann,  with  her  splendid  voice  and  her 
pre-eminent  dramatic  ability,  brought  out  quite  so  vividly 
the  terror  of  the  child's  cry  that  the  Erlking  has  seized 
him,  or  the  tragic  pathos  of  the  last  lines  where  the  father 
gallops  on  and  finds  the  child  dead  in  his  arms.  .  .  . 

Evidently  there  is  something  in  music  besides  bel  canto ; 
something  even  more  worth  while.  Dr.  Wullner  showed 
this  in  other  songs  on  his  programme — songs  by  Schubert, 
Schumann,  Brahms,  Wolf,  and  Strauss;  songs  in  diverse 
moods;  but  the  two  referred  to  were  his  greatest  achieve- 
ments. It  was  in  the  Doppelgaenger,  too,  that  his  pianist, 
Mr.  Coenraad  von  Bos,  was  heard  at  his  best,  playing  with 
thrilling  breadth  and  accent  those  sombre  chords  which 
are  as  modem,  as  emotional,  as  those  which  accompany 
the  music  of  Erda  and  Klingsor,  in  Wagner's  Siegfried  and 
Parsifal. 

Dr.  Wullner  has  a  repertory  of  700  songs.  He  sang  at 
119  recitals  throughout  Europe  last  season.  His  last  two 
Berlin  recitals  were  heard  by  3,000  persons.  His  American 
success  will  doubtless  be  equally  great  when  once  the  public 
finds  out  what  a  magician  he  is.  He  affects  audiences  like 
a  great  revivalist,  like  an  orator  appealing  to  patriotic  sen- 
timent. His  last  number  on  Saturday  was  Schumann's 
The  Two  Grenadiers,  a  song  which  has  often  almost  sufficed 
in  itself  to  fill  the  Metropolitan  on  a  Sunday  night  when 
Plan^ion  sang  it.  Planf on  is  a  great  singer,  with  a  voice  of 
beauty  as  well  as  dramatic  power;  yet  he  never  sang  the 
Marseillaise  with  quite  such  fervor  and  thrilling  effect  as 
Dr.  Wullner. 

The  public  soon  did  find  out  what  a  magician  this  Ger- 
man singer  was.  Criticisms  as  enthusiastic  as  the  one  just 
cited  appeared  in  the  other  newspapers,  and  Dr.  Wullner 


244  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

gave  recital  after  recital.  At  his  fifth  appearance  "  it  looked 
like  a  first  night  at  the  opera,"  said  the  Journal  of  Com- 
merce. Mr.  Chase,  of  the  Evening  Sun,  wrote,  on  February 
2,  1909:  "  Wiillner's  twelfth  appearance  sold  out  Mendels- 
sohn Hall  yesterday,  and  150  chairs  in  an  anteroom  that 
even  the  Kneisels  never  use.  Dozens  of  people  stood, 
hundreds,  with  money,  were  actually  turned  away.  '  How 
does  he  do  it?'  a  woman  exclaimed.  .  .  .  He  makes  the 
songs  talk."  Max  Smith,  of  the  Press,  wrote  on  the  same 
date:  "  Wiillner's  enormous  sucess  in  New  York  and  other 
places  has  been  one  of  the  biggest  surprises  of  recent  years." 

Mendelssohn  Hall  had  become  too  small  to  hold  the 
thousands  eager  to  hear  Wlillner.  He  had  to  move,  like 
Paderewski  when  he  first  came  to  America,  to  a  larger 
building.  On  March  5  Max  Smith  wrote:  "Dr.  Ludwig 
Wiillner  broke  the  Polish  monopoly  last  night,  when,  alone 
and  unaided,  except  for  the  piano  accompaniments  of 
Coenraad  von  Bos,  he  packed  Carnegie  Hall  to  the  doors 
and  held  his  audience  spellbound  for  fully  two  hours.  Sem- 
brich  and  Paderewski  are  not  the  only  artists  who,  single- 
handed  and  single- voiced,  can  attract  an  immense  throng. 
A  German,  who  certain  connoisseurs  say  has  no  voice  at 
all,  is  in  the  race.  .  .  .  The  riot  of  enthusiasm  that 
Wiillner  invariably  arouses  caught  last  night's  audience 
too." 

Why  do  song  recitals  seldom  pay?  The  programmes 
made  for  them  usually  bear  out  Maurice  Renaud's  asser- 
tion that  "musicians  do  not  love  masterworks."  One 
wonders,  on  looking  at  the  average  programme — so  differ- 
ent from  Wiillner' s — what  could  have  induced  its  maker  to 
bring  together  such  a  hodge-podge  of  mediocrity  and  in- 
anity. But  the  explanation  is  very  simple.  Vocalists  sel- 
dom consider  the  intrinsic  merit  of  a  song;  they  seek  some- 
thing which  is  easy  to  sing  and  which  brings  out  the  most 
telling  qualities  of  their  own  voices.    Their  one  idea  is  to 


LUDWIG  WULLNER  245 

impress  the  public  with  their  own  wonderful  accomplish- 
ments; it  never  occurs  to  them  that  the  kind  of  people  who 
are  likely  to  attend  a  song  recital  would  be  infinitely  more 
impressed  by  the  genius  of  Goethe  and  Schubert,  or  Heine 
and  Franz,  as  united  in  a  song,  than  by  their  own  vocal 
feats.  They  have  now  had  an  opportunity  to  realize  that 
this  is  true,  as  shown  by  Dr.  Wlillner.  He,  thank  Heaven, 
has  no  voice  to  show  off.  He  simply  saturates  him- 
self with  the  great  poems  and  the  immortal  music  set 
to  them,  and  thus  arouses  a  frenzy  of  enthusiasm.  He 
came  to  give  a  score  of  concerts  and  gave  fourscore. 
Hu  concerts  paid;  he  took  back  with  him  a  small 
fortune. 

"Undoubtedly,"  wrote  the  critic  of  the  Chicago  Tribune^ 
''American  singers,  who  have  so  long  believed  that  their 
art  began  and  ended  with  the  placing  of  the  voice  and  the 
production  of  a  beautiful  and  unvariable  tone,  will  realize 
that  they  stand  only  at  its  portals."  This  is  one  of  the  chief 
lessons  taught  by  Wlillner' s  great  success.  Another  is  that 
an  audience  can  be  stirred  more  deeply  by  a  singer's  in- 
tellectual, emotional,  interpretative  gifts  than  by  mere 
sensuous  beauty  and  agility  of  voice.  And  a  third  lesson 
is  that  the  best  songs  are  none  too  good  for  the  public  pro- 
vided they  are  interpreted  with  adequate  art  and  elo- 
quence. If  it  is  really  true  that  Rossini  once  said  that  the 
three  great  requisites  for  a  singer  are  "voice,  voice,  and 
voice,"  he  should  have  lived  to  hear  Wiillner  and  realize 
his  mistake.  Where  many — oh,  so  many! — others  with 
fine  voices  and  nothing  else  have  failed,  he,  with  an  ordi- 
nary voice,  but  a  great  deal  in  the  way  of  brains,  poetic 
appreciation,  and  dramatic  power,  has  triumphed.  Will 
these  other  singers  heed  this  lesson  ?  Will  they  learn  that 
the  lied,  like  the  opera,  is  a  combination  of  poetry  and 
music,  and  that  dramatic  power  is  needed  as  well  as  vocal 
skill  to  do  it  justice  ?    Dr.  Wiillner  appeals  not  only  to  the 


246  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

ears  of  his  hearers  but  to  their  minds  and  emotions.  He  is 
"as  deft  in  laughter  as  in  tears,"  "a  singing  actor,  a  most 
magnetic  personality,"  writes  Louis  C.  Elson,  and  that  is 
why,  as  Philip  Hale  attests,  he  "has  his  audience  in  the 
hollow  of  his  hand." 

Rarely  have  critics  been  so  unanimous  in  their  praise  of 
an  artist.  To  cite  only  one  more,  H.  T.  Parker  of  the 
Boston  Transcript,  declares  that  "Dr.  Wiillner  has  been 
the  creator  of  a  new  world  of  passion,  mood,  character, 
drama,  and  picture  out  of  exalted  musical  speech  in  which 
he  has  set  and  held  us."  A  similar  eulogistic  anthology 
might  be  compiled  from  English,  German,  Russian,  and 
Swedish  journals,  but  two  or  three  instructive  samples 
must  suffice.  Ferdinand  Pfohl,  the  eminent  Hamburg 
critic,  says  that  "when  Wiillner  sings  or  recites,  songs  be- 
come dramas.  He  gives  us  tragedy,  apparently  himself 
going  through  the  events  depicted,  himself  the  tragic  victim. 
.  .  .  His  words  burn  like  fire.  ...  He  puts  us,  as  it 
were,  in  a  trance."  "It  is  related  of  Dr.  Johnson,"  says 
the  London  Daily  News,  "that  he  had  in  a  rare  degree  the 
power  of  tearing  the  heart  out  of  a  book,  and  it  is  Dr. 
Ludwig  Wiillner' s  possession  of  much  the  same  faculty 
that  enables  him  to  go  straight  to  the  heart  of  a  song  and 
convey  its  meaning  to  his  audience."  And  A.  Abell,  of 
Berlin,  wrote  to  the  New  York  Musical  Courier  in  1907: 
"  Johannes  Messchaert,  the  famous  Dutch  baritone,  one  of 
Wiillner' s  leading  rivals,  who  is  now  so  justly  popular  in 
Germany,  wins  his  success  with  diametrically  opposite 
means — with  his  exquisite  Italian  style  of  singing- — yet  he 
never  enthuses  an  audience  to  the  extent  that  Wiillner 
does." 

To  trace  the  development  of  such  a  unique  artist  is  a 
task  equally  interesting  and  instructive.  But  as  this  task 
can  be  accomplished  satisfactorily  by  no  one  but  Dr. 
Wiillner  himself,  I  am  glad  to  say  that  I  succeeded  in 


LUDWIG  WULLNER  247 

persuading  him  to  write  for  this  book  the  following  sketch 
of  his  career: 

As  a  matter  of  course,  I  sang  from  my  earliest  childhood. 
As  a  boy  I  had  a  high  soprano  voice  of  agreeable  quality, 
and  often — especially  when  I  was  alone  out  in  the  open — 
I  indulged  in  the  most  extraordinary  warblings  and  im- 
provisations. When  my  voice  changed  I  continued,  I 
regret  to  say,  in  spite  of  all  protests,  to  sing;  I  forced  my 
tones  as  long  as  I  could,  till  hoarseness  set  in,  and  thus  I 
spoiled  my  voice  for  years.  When  I  was  instructor  at 
the  University  of  Miinster  (1884-7)  I  sang  a  great  deal, 
privately  and  also  at  concerts  (under  Julius  Otto  Grimm), 
but  of  course  only  to  please  myself  and  others,  or  to  give 
vent  to  my  feelings.  Then  when  I  became  a  musician 
(1887-9)  I  also  studied  singing,  but  my  instructor  at 
that  time  did  not  succeed  in  teaching  me  overmuch  about 
tone  emission,  nor  did  I  yet  enter  what  subsequently  be- 
came my  proper  domain:  the  German  lied. 

To  that  I  began  to  devote  myself  during  the  time  I  was 
an  actor  at  Meiningen  (1889-95).  At  that  time  Fritz 
Steinbach  was  conductor  of  the  Meiningen  orchestra,  and 
Brahms  used  to  go  there  frequently  as  friend  and  guest  of 
the  Duke  of  Meiningen.  Whenever  that  happened  I  was 
at  once  excused  from  all  theatrical  rehearsals  and  per- 
formances and  commanded  to  appear  at  the  castle.  I 
sang  only  songs  at  that  period,  and  Brahms  took  great 
pleasure  in  what  I  did,  which  made  me  feel  proud  and 
happy.  Brahms  called  my  attention  to  many  neglected 
but  most  precious  Schubert  songs,  and  now  and  then  I 
was  permitted  to  sing  some  lieder  of  his  own  which  were 
off  the  beaten  path  and  which  no  one  else  had  ever  sung 
for  him.  Above  all  things,  Brahms  never  wearied  of 
hearing  me  sing  the  German  Folksongs  issued  by  him. 

Encouraged  by  all  these  experiences,  I  gave,  early  in 
October,  1895 — when  I  was  still  an  actor  at  Meiningen — 
my  first  song  rec'tals  in  Berlin,  and  these  made  such  an 
impression,  stirred  up  so  much  feeling  for  and  against  me, 


248  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

that  I  left  Meiningen  a  few  months  later  and  once  more 
changed  my  vocation  by  becoming  a  professional  lieder 
singer.  I  said  to  myself:  "Of  good  German  actors  there 
are  plenty,  but  in  the  realm  of  song-interpretation  you 
have  brought  something  new  which  heretofore  has  not 
existed — at  any  rate,  not  in  the  same  degree.  Here  your 
strength  will  perhaps  be  more  needed  than  on  the  stage." 

I  may  well  say  that  the  effect  I  created  was  a  surprise  to 
myself;  I  had  not  suspected  that  so  much  that  was  new 
could  be  done  in  this  direction.  It  so  happened  that  I  had 
never  heard  any  of  the  older  great  lieder  singers,  such  as 
Julius  Stockhausen,  Eugen  Gura;  only  Georg  Henschel  I 
had  heard  once,  as  a  boy;  I  therefore  fancied  that  all  these 
vocalists  rendered  songs  in  my  manner,  or  similarly.  What 
is  this  manner  ?    Let  me  try  to  explain. 

I  cannot  regard  the  lied  from  a  merely  musical  point 
of  view;  it  means  more  to  me  than  an  aria,  a  purely  vocal 
piece.  A  lied  must  always  seem  like  the  liberation  of 
a  profound,  soulful,  personal  feeling  (die  Aeusserung  einer 
tiefen,  seelischen  Selbstbefreiung).  The  hearer  must  get 
the  impression  that  the  person  who  sings  this  or  that  song  at 
^^his  special  moment  sings  it  not  because  he  wants  to  do  so 
or  wishes  to  please  others,  but  because  he  must^  because  he 
cannot  do  otherwise,  but  must  express  himself,  must  give 
vent  to  his  feelings.  That  alone  is  to  me  true  lyric  art. 
Thus  the  mood  (often  also  the  content)  of  every  song  be- 
comes associated  with  some  actual  occurrence  in  the 
singer's  own  life  (this,  of  course,  will  vary).  In  this  way 
the  lied  becomes  an  improvisation;  it  is,  as  it  were,  born 
anew  each  time  it  is  sung.  To  reach  that  result,  to  create 
the  song  over  again  each  time  from  within — that  is  what  I 
try  to  do.  It  is  self-evident  that  in  this  procedure  the  tonal 
musical  form  must  not  be  in  the  least  neglected— for  the 
form  is  here  often  the  soul! 

This  is  the  manner  in  which  I  have  been  endeavoring 
these  last  thirteen  or  fourteen  years  to  sing  German  lieder. 
At  the  beginning,  I  admit,  I  not  seldom  broke  the  form,  as 
I  realized  later.    But  perhaps  that  also  had  to  be  as  it  was. 


LUDWIG  WULLNER  249 

To  this  day  some  of  my  opponents  find  my  method  of 
utterance  "theatrical" — nay,  even  "decadent" — I  cannot 
judge  that,  of  course.  At  any  rate,  I  had  not  in  the  first 
years  gained  such  control  of  vocal  technic  as  I  have  now. 
I  aimed  only  at  expression,  regardless  of  tone,  and  thus 
there  was  some  basis  to  the  report  that  I  was  "a  singer 
without  a  voice" — one  who  "declaims  and  speaks"  rather 
than  sings.  This  label  will  probably  always  cling  to  me 
more  or  less.  But  I  must  say  that  I  have  subjected  the 
sound,  too,  from  year  to  year  to  a  more  and  more  strict 
criticism,  and  have  labored  industriously  to  acquire  tech- 
nical facility  in  tone  emission.  I  have  endeavored  to  save 
and  to  develop  whatever  of  tonal  quality  was  to  be  got  out 
of  my  no  longer  young  and  often  abused  throat;  and  while 
I  know,  of  course,  that  in  my  case  tonal  charm  can  never 
be  the  main  thing,  I  nevertheless  hope,  despite  my  age,  to 
make  some  little  progress  in  this  direction,  above  all,  in  the 
art  of  saturating  the  consonants  with  a  musical  klang, 
without  interfering  in  the  least  with  distinctness  of  enun- 
ciation. Mood,  expression,  inwardness — all  these  things 
come  to  me  spontaneously;  they  are  gifts  for  which  I  can 
never  be  sufficiently  grateful  to  fate;  it  is  only  on  the  side 
of  tone-emission  that  I  need  to  work.  And  my  endeavor 
is  to  make  the  tone  quality,  if  not  more  beautiful,  at  any 
rate  more  capable  of  variation  and  richer  in  color. 

So  far  Dr.  WuUner. 

Edward  MacDowell,  in  speaking  of  his  fourth  sonata, 
wrote:  "I  have  made  use  of  all  the  suggestion  of  tone- 
painting  in  my  power — just  as  the  bard  would  have  re- 
inforced his  speech  with  gesture  and  facial  expression." 
Dr.  Wiillner,  too,  like  the  ancient  bards  who  swayed  the 
hearts  of  the  people,  makes  some  use  of  gesture  and  facial 
expression,  but  never  to  excess.  What  impresses  one  most 
in  looking  at  him  is  an  expression  of  absence — he  is  like  one 
in  a  trance,  with  eyes  closed,  his  individuality  merged  in 
the  story  of  the  song.  He  is  the  medium  through  whom  the 
poet  and  the  composer  speak  to  the  audience. 


PART  III 
GREAT  PIANISTS 


xni 

EVOLUTION  OF  THE  PIANO   VIRTUOSO 

Opera  singers  were  prominent  in  the  musical  world 
nearly  two  centuries  before  pianists  began  to  play  an 
equally  important  part.  It  was  early  in  the  seventeenth 
century  that  opera  came  into  vogue  in  Italy,  and  as  it  ap- 
pealed to  the  masses  by  presenting  a  plot  and  picturesque 
scenery  in  combination  with  music,  it  soon  made  its  way 
to  other  countries,  and  there  came  into  existence  a  class  of 
vocalists  who  travelled  from  city  to  city,  from  country  to 
country,  winning  fame  and  wealth.  To  this  class  belong, 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  the  tenors:  Paita,  Raaff,  Rauz- 
zini;  the  women:  Cuzzoni,  Faustina  Hasse,  Agujari,  Strada, 
Todi,  Schroter,  Mingotti,  Pirker,  Mara;  the  male  sopranos 
and  altos:  Caffarelli,  Cusanoni,  Ferri,  Pasi,  Farinelli, 
Senesino,  Nicolini,  Gizzielo,  Momoletto,  Salimbeni. 

If  we  turn  from  opera  to  the  concert  hall  we  find  some 
violinists,  as  well  as  flute,  oboe,  and  horn  players,  but  only 
a  few  pianists  who,  before  the  nineteenth  century,  became 
virtuosos  of  world-wide  celebrity,  like  those  singers.  Bach 
(1685-1750)  wrote  immortal  works  for  the  keyed  instru- 
ments, and  he  was  an  expert  performer  on  the  precursors 
of  the  modern  piano-forte — the  clavichord  and  harpsichord; 
so  was  Handel  (1685-1759) ;  but  neither  of  these  was  a  pro- 
fessional concert  pianist.  A  nearer  approach  to  the  modern 
virtuoso  were  the  Italian,  Domenico  Scarlatti  (1685-175 7) 
and  the  Frenchman,  Francois  Couperin  (1668-1733) — but 
only  an  approach. 

253 


254  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  concert-giving  was  not  greatly  in 
vogue  before  the  nineteenth  century.  Few  cities  before 
that  time  boasted  of  much  in  the  way  of  professional  or- 
ganizations, while  the  travelling  violinists,  flutists,  oboists, 
pianists,  and  other  instrumental  soloists  were  heard  mostly 
at  the  court  concerts  of  the  higher  nobility.  Gradually, 
however,  concert-giving  lost  this  aristocratic  fetter  and 
became  democratic,  making  its  appeal,  like  the  opera,  to 
all  classes  alike;  and  with  this  change  came  the  pianist's 
opportunity  to  compete  with  the  prima  donnas,  the  tenors, 
and  the  violinists. 

He  had  been  hampered  theretofore  by  another  obstacle 
— the  character  of  his  instrument.  The  singer  found  his 
voice  ready  for  him  whenever  he  wanted  it,  and  violin- 
making  reached  a  degree  of  perfection  in  the  seventeenth 
century  never  equalled  since.  But  until  the  Italian,  Cris- 
tofori,  invented  the  piano- jorte,  key-board  players  had  to 
content  themselves  with  the  tinkling  clavichords  and  harp- 
sichords, which  were  incapable  of  those  differences  in 
loudness  which  were  provided  by  the  piano  e  jorte  (soft- 
and-loud),  as  it  was  originally  called.  Cristofori's  inven- 
tion was  made,  it  is  true,  as  early  as  the  year  17 ii,  but  it 
attracted  little  attention  until  a  German,  Gottfried  Silber- 
mann,  applied  it  in  his  instruments;  and  even  these  were 
at  first  so  defective  that  Bach,  who  lived  to  try  them,  was 
only  gradually  persuaded  of  their  superiority  to  the  clavi- 
chord and  harpsichord.  The  makers  of  these  old-fash- 
ioned instruments  also  did  all  they  could  to  retard  the 
general  introduction  of  the  piano-forte;  and  thus  it  came 
about  that  the  reign  of  the  actual  virtuoso  on  this  instru- 
ment did  not  begin  much  more  than  a  century  ago,  at  the 
time  of  Beethoven,  although  Mozart,  as  a  boy  and  youth, 
had  won  much  praise  for  his  remarkable  feats  on  the 
instruments  of  his  time. 


XIV 
HOW  BEETHOVEN  PLAYED  AND  TAUGHT 

It  is  probable  that  the  remarkable  successes  of  young 
Mozart  as  a  pianist  had  something  to  do  with  arousing  the 
ardent  desire  of  Johann  van  Beethoven,  an  impecunious 
tenor  at  Bonn,  to  have  a  profitable  prodigy  in  his  own 
family.  At  any  rate,  he  made  his  talented  son  Ludwig 
practise  on  the  key-board  diligently  at  an  early  age,  and 
the  boy  was  only  eight  years  old  when  he  played  concertos 
in  the  Musical  Academy.  Three  years  later  he  became  a 
pupil  of  Neefe,  who,  as  good  luck  would  have  it,  was  a 
Bach  enthusiast  and  made  him  play  chiefly  the  Well- 
tempered  Clavichord  for  practice.  Another  fortunate  oc- 
currence was  his  appointment,  at  the  age  of  twelve,  as 
accompanist  of  operatic  performances  at  the  piano,  a  po- 
sition which  made  him  familiar  with  scores,  and  taught 
him  to  read  and  play  them  readily. 

In  1 791,  when  Beethoven  was  twenty-one  years  old, 
an  intelligent  amateur  named  Junker  heard  him  play,  and 
liked  particularly  his  improvising.  He  had  often  heard  the 
famous  Abbe  Vogler,  the  teacher  and  inspirer  of  Weber 
and  Meyerbeer;  but  he  found  Beethoven  "more  eloquent, 
imposing,  expressive — in  a  word,"  he  adds,  Beethoven 
"  touches  the  heart  more,  he  is,  therefore,  as  fine  in  Adagio 
as  in  Allegro.  .  .  .  His  playing  differs  so  greatly  from  the 
usual  method  of  treating  the  piano  that  it  seems  as  if  he 
had  struck  out  an  entirely  new  path  for  himself,  in  order 
to  reach  the  goal  of  perfection  to  which  he  has  attained." 

^  ^ --—^  255 


256  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

Two  years  later  Neefe  pronounced  him  "unquestionably 
one  of  the  foremost  pianists." 

When  Beethoven  was  seventeen  he  made  a  short  visit 
to  Vienna.  Mozart  heard  him  on  that  occasion.  At  first 
he  was  indifferent,  but  when  the  youth  began  to  improvise 
on  a  given  theme,  Mozart  exclaimed:  " Keep  your  eyes  on 
him!  He  will  some  day  make  the  world  talk  about  him." 
When  Beethoven  returned  to  Vienna  five  years  later 
(1792)  to  make  it  his  permanent  home,  Mozart  was  no 
longer  among  the  living.  Referring  to  that  time,  a  writer 
in  the  Wiener  Musikzeitung  said:  "Beethoven  came 
hither,  and  attracted  general  attention  as  a  pianist  even 
then.  We  had  already  lost  Mozart;  all  the  more  welcome, 
therefore,  was  a  new  and  so  admirable  an  artist  on  the 
same  instrument.  True,  an  important  difference  was  ap- 
parent in  the  style  of  these  two;  the  roundness,  tranquillity, 
and  delicacy  of  Mozart's  style  were  foreign  to  the  new  vir- 
tuoso; on  the  other  hand,  his  enhanced  vigor  and  fiery 
expression  affected  every  listener." 

There  were  cliques  and  partisans  in  those  days  as  there 
are  in  ours.  Among  the  rivals  of  Beethoven  as  pianist 
were  Woelffl,  Cramer,  and  Hummel.  Concerning  WoelfB 
and  Beethoven,  a  critic  wrote  in  1799:  "  Opinions  differ  as 
to  their  relative  superiority,  but  the  majority  incline  toward 
Woelffl.  .  .  .  Beethoven's  playing  is  more  brilliant  but  less 
delicate,  and  fails  sometimes  in  clearness.  He  appears  to 
most  advantage  in  improvisation,  and  it  is  indeed  mar- 
vellous to  see  how  easily  and  logically  he  will  extem- 
porize on  any  given  theme,  not  merely  by  varying  the  fig- 
ures (as  many  virtuosi  do  with  much  success  and— bluster), 
but  by  a  real  development  of  the  idea.  Since  the  death  of 
Mozart,  who  was  to  my  mind  the  non  plus  ultra  of  players, 
no  one  has  given  me  so  much  pleasure  as  Beethoven." 

Improvising  in  public  is  no  longer  a  habit  of  concert 
pianists.     In  the  days  of  Mozart  and  Beethoven  it  was 


HOW  BEETHOVEN  PLAYED  257 

quite  the  thing  to  do.  Seyfried  relates  that  the  rivalry  be- 
tween Beethoven  and  Woelffl  did  not  prevent  the  two  ar- 
tists from  seating  themselves  side  by  side  at  two  pianos  and 
alternately  improvising  on  themes  proposed  by  one  to  the 
other.  At  private  gatherings  improvising  was  still  more  in 
vogue.  Czerny  relates  how  one  evening,  in  the  palace  of 
Prince  Lobkowitz,  Beethoven,  after  many  entreaties,  was 
dragged  almost  by  force  to  the  piano-forte  by  the  ladies. 
Angrily  he  snatched  the  second-violin  part  of  one  of 
Pleyel's  quartets  from  the  music-stand,  and  on  these  notes, 
wholly  insignificant  in  themselves,  he  built  up  daring  har- 
monies and  melodies  in  the  most  brilliant  concert  style,  the 
violin  part  running  in  the  middle  voices,  like  a  thread. 
Old  Pleyel  was  so  amazed  that  he  kissed  the  player^s 
hands.  "After  such  improvisations  Beethoven  was  wont 
to  break  out  into  a  loud  and  satisfied  laugh." 

The  same  authority  assures  us  that  Beethoven's  general 
attitude  in  playing  was  "masterly  in  its  tranquillity  and 
refinement,  without  the  slightest  gesticulation  (except 
bending  over  as  his  deafness  increased),"  and  we  have 
also  an  interesting  description  by  J.  Russell  (an  English- 
man who  published  his  Travels  in  Germany  in  1820-22) 
of  Beethoven  when  improvising.  He  "soon  forgot  his 
surroundings  and  for  about  half  an  hour  lost  himself  in  an 
improvisation  the  style  of  which  was  exceedingly  varied 
and  especially  distinguished  by  sudden  transitions.  The 
amateurs  were  transported,  and  to  the  uninitiated  it  was 
interesting  to  observe  how  his  inspirations  were  reflected 
in  his  countenance.  He  revelled  rather  in  bold,  stormy 
moods  than  in  soft  and  gentle  ones.  The  muscles  of  his 
face  swelled,  his  veins  were  distended,  his  eyes  rolled 
wildly,  his  mouth  trembled  convulsively,  and  he  had  the 
appearance  of  an  enchanter  mastered  by  the  spirit  he  had 
himself  conjured." 

Much  depended  on  his  mood;  he  was  not  always  at  his 


258  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

best.  Cramer  criticised  in  his  playing  the  "  uneven  repro- 
duction of  one  and  the  same  composition,  to-day  spirited 
and  full  of  characteristic  expression,  to-morrow  eccentric 
to  indistinctness,  often  confusion."  According  to  Clementi, 
''his  playing  was  but  little  cultivated,  not  seldom  violent, 
like  himself,  but  always  full  of  spirit." 

The  supporters  of  Hummel  accused  him  of  ''misusing 
the  piano,  of  failing  utterly  in  purity  and  clearness,  and  by 
his  use  of  the  pedal  producing  only  a  confused  noise." 
We  need  not  pay  much  attention  to  these  Hummelites,- 
who  also  declared  that  Beethoven's  compositions  were  "  far- 
fetched, unnatural,  unmelodious,  and  contrary  to  rule." 
The  reference  to  his  pedalling  is,  however,  of  interest. 
Czerny,  who  knew  what  he  was  talking  about  (he  was  a 
pupil  of  Beethoven  and  the  teacher  of  Liszt),  tells  us  that 
Beethoven  used  the  pedal  a  great  dealj  jar  more  than  is  indi- 
cated in  his  works. 

For  the  proper  performance  of  his  works  this  is  a  point 
of  prime  importance.  The  pedal  is  a  great  aid  to  success, 
as  we  shall  see  in  a  later  chapter. 

Of  even  greater  importance  to  those  who  would  succeed 
as  authoritative  Beethoven  players  is  the  question  as  to  his 
attitude  toward  those  frequent  modifications  of  tempo 
which  are  of  the  essence  of  modern  music.  Was  he  rigid 
or  elastic,  metronomic  or  poetic?  Schindler,  his  pupil, 
companion,  and  biographer,  answers  this  question  for  us 
reliably.  He  himself  knew  Beethoven  only  in  the  last 
thirteen  years  of  his  life,  and  in  that  period,  he  says,  what 
he  heard  him  play  "  was  always,  with  few  exceptions,  free 
of  all  restraint  in  tempo;  a  tempo  rubato  in  the  most 
exact  meaning  of  the  term."  Beethoven's  older  friends, 
however,  he  continues,  "who  had  attentively  followed  the 
development  of  his  mind  in  every  direction,  affirmed  that 
he  did  not  assume  this  manner  of  performance  until  the 
first  years  of  his  third  period,  then  having  quite  forsaken 


HOW  BEETHOVEN  PLAYED  259 

his  earlier,  less  expressively  varied,  manner."  By  tempo 
rubato  Schindler  means  ritardandos  and  accelerandos  of 
the  pace  as  a  whole,  ''changes  in  the  rate  of  motion — 
mostly  perceptible  only  to  a  delicate  ear" — no  " left- 
hand-in-strict- time "  nonsense.  Schindler  also  calls  atten- 
tion to  the  fact  that  sometimes  the  great  master  "delayed 
very  long"  over  a  single  chord.  He  makes  it  clear  that 
Beethoven  treated  a  piece  of  music  as  an  orator  treats  a 
speech — respecting  the  words  and  the  punctuation  marks, 
but-reading  in  a  good  deal  between  the  lines. 

Here  we  have  that  rare  thing,  real  traditions;  and  they 
make  it  obvious  that  Beethoven's  own  way  of  playing  his 
works  was  much  more  like  Paderewski's  than  like  that  of 
the  academicians  who,  in  following  the  letter,  kill  the 
spirit.  Nothing,  indeed,  was  more  foreign  to  Beethoven's 
temperament  than  academic  primness  and  literalness. 
He  employed  expression-marks  more  freely  than  any  mas- 
ter before  his  time,  yet  he  still  left  many  nuances  to  the 
feeling  of  the  player.  The  conservative  Franz  Kullak  feels 
''obliged  to  declare  that  even  with  an  exact  observance  of 
all  dynamic  expression-marks  a  'soulful'  interpretation  is 
not  arrived  at.  As  long  as  nothing  more  is  done,  the  inter- 
pretation will  usually  prove  stiff  and  void  of  expression; 
and  the  hearer  may  well  say,  'The  performance  did  not 
move  me.'"  * 

Ferdinand  Riis,  who  was  an  earlier  pupil  of  Beethoven 
than  Schindler,  also  calls  attention  to  some  of  the  unwrit- 
ten details  of  expression  employed  by  the  master;  "some- 
times he  would  play  a  crescendo  with  a  ritardando,  which 
made  a  very  fine  and  striking  effect.    In  playing  he  would 

*  Much  interesting  information  is  compiled,  chiefly  from  Thayer's 
biography,  in  Beethoven's  Piano  Playing,  written  as  an  introduction  to  a 
new  critical  edition  of  the  concertos,  by  Franz  Kullak,  and  printed  sepa- 
rately under  that  title;  English,  by  Dr.  Theodore  Baker  (New  York:  G. 
Schirmer,  1901).  A  chapter  of  58  pages  is  devoted  to  the  much-disputed 
Beethoven  trill. 


26o  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

give,  now  to  one  passage  and  again  to  another,  in  the 
right  hand  or  left,  a  beautiful,  fairly  inimitable  expression, 
btit  he  very  rarely,  indeed,  added  notes  or  an  ornament." 

Accentuation  was  another  vital  element  in  Beethoven's 
playing.  Schindler  tells  us  that  he  was  "in  the  habit  of 
accenting^  all  suspensions,  particularly  that  of  the  minor 
second  in  cantabile,  more  emphatically  than  other  players 
whom  we  had  heard.  This  imbued  his  playing  with  a  char- 
acteristic pregnancy  quite  different  from  the  smooth,  shal- 
low performances  which  never  reach  the  height  of  tone- 
speech."^ 

To  the  acrobats  of  the  key-board  who  abounded  in  his 
day  Beethoven  referred  contemptuously  as  pianists  "who 
prance  up  and  down  the  key-board  with  passages  in  which 
they  have  exercised  themselves — putsch,  putsch,  putsch; 
what  does  that  mean?  Nothing."  "As  a  rule,  in  the 
case  of  these  gentlemen,  all  reason  and  feeling  are  gener- 
ally lost  in  the  nimblene'ss  of  their  fingers." 

Regarding  Beethoven's  method  of  teaching,  Riis  says: 
"  When  I  made  a  mistake  in  a  passage,  or  struck  wrongly 
notes  or  leaps  which  he  often  wanted  specially  empha- 
sized, he  seldom  said  anything;  but  if  my  fault  was  in  ex- 
pression, or  a  crescendo,  etc.,  or  in  the  character  of  the 
piece,  he  became  angry,  because,  as  he  said,  the  former  was 
accidental,  while  the  latter  showed  a  lack  of  knowledge, 
feeling,  or  attention.  He  himself  very  often  made  mistakes 
of  the  former  kind,  even  when  playing  in  public." 

To  Czerny,  who  was  instructing  his  nephew,  Beethoven 
wrote:  "With  regard  to  his  playing,  I  beg  you,  if  once  he 
has  got  the  right  fingering,  plays  in  good  time,  with  the 
notes  fairly  correct,  then  only  pull  him  up  about  the  ren- 
dering; and  when  he  is  arrived  at  that  stage,  don't  let  him 
stop  for  the  sake  of  small  faults,  but  point  them  out  to  him 
when  he  has  played  the  piece  through.  Although  I  have 
done  little  in  the  way  of  teaching,  I  have  always  adopted 


HOW  BEETHOVEN  PLAYED  261 

this  plan;  it  soon  forms  musicians,  which,  after  all,  is  one 
of  the  first  aims  of  art,  and  it  gives  less  trouble  both  to 
master  and  pupil." 

When  Jahn  was  collecting  material  for  a  biography  of 
Beethoven  he  had  an  interview  with  Count  Gallenberg, 
who  informed  him  that  the  composer,  when  he  gave  lessons 
to  the  Countess  Guicciardi,  ''had  her  play  his  pieces;  he 
was  very  strict,  till  the  interpretation  had  become  correct 
down  to  the  minutest  detail;  he  liked  an  easy  style  of  play- 
ing. He  readily  became  violent,  threw  the  music  on  the 
floor,  or  tore  it  up.  He  took  no  money,  though  he  was  poor, 
but  he  accepted  some  linen  articles  because  the  Countess 
had  sewed  them.  ...  He  did  not  like  to  play  his  own 
things,  but  merely  improvised,  and  if  the  slightest  noise  was 
made  he  got  up  and  left." 


XV 

CHOPIN  AS  PIANIST  AND  TEACHER 

Two  years  after  Beethoven  died  in  Vienna,  a  concert 
was  given  in  the  same  city  by  a  young  Pole  from  Warsaw 
named  Frederick  Chopin.  His  style  was  different  from 
that  of  any  other  pianist  ever  heard  there,  and  the  critics, 
to  their  credit  be  it  said,  not  only  spoke  well  of  him  but 
detected  at  once  some  of  his  unique  qualities.  The  follow- 
ing hits  the  nail  exactly  on  the  head:  "His  playing,  like 
his  compositions,  .  .  .  has  a  certain  character  of  modesty 
which  seems  to  indicate  that  to  shine  is  not  the  aim  of 
this  young  man,  although  his  execution  conquered  diffi- 
culties the  overcoming  of  which  even  here,  in  the  home  of 
piano-forte  virtuosos,  could  not  fail  to  cause  astonishment; 
nay,  with  almost  ironical  naivete,  he  takes  it  into  his  head 
to  entertain  a  large  audience  with  music  as  music.  And 
lo!  he  succeeded  in  this.  The  unprejudiced  public  re- 
warded him  with  lavish  applause." 

This  critic  praises  him  specially  for  the  way  he  per- 
formed ''.a  free  fantasia  before  a  public  in  whose  eyes  few 
improyisers,  with  the  exception  of  Beethoven  and  Hum- 
mel, have  as  yet  found  favor";  and  he  adds:  "Mr.  Chopin 
gave  to-day  so  much  pleasure  to  a  small  audience  that  one 
cannot  help  wishing  he  may  at  another  performance  play 
before  a  larger  one." 

''Mr.  Chopin,  a  pianist  from  Warsaw,"  wrote  another 
critic,  "came  before  us  a  master  of  the  first  rank,  ...  a 
virtuoso  most  liberally  endowed  by  nature,  who,  without 

362 


CHOPIN  AS  PIANIST  AND  TEACHER    263 

previous  blasts  of  trumpets,  appears  on  the  horizon  like 
one  of  the  most  brilliant  meteors." 

To  a  youth  of  twenty,  who  had  never  played  outside  his 
native  town,  such  praise,  in  what  was  then,  next  to  Paris, 
the  world's  leading  musical  city,  must  have  been  encour- 
aging. As  a  matter  of  course,  not  all  of  his  peculiarities 
were  at  once  understood.  The  critic  first  cited  named  as 
a  defect  "the  non-observance  of  the  indication  by  accent  of 
the^  commencement  of  musical  phrases" — not  being  famil- 
iar, evidently,  with  that  irregularity  in  the  bestowal  of 
accents  which  is  one  of  the  great  charms  of  Slavic  music, 
and  of  Chopin's  in  particular. 

The  principal  fault  found  with  his  playing  was  that  it 
was  too  soft,  or  rather,  too  delicate.  As  he  himself  wrote 
in  a  letter,  on  that  point  the  critics  were  unanimous;  but, 
he  adds:  "They  are  accustomed  to  the  drumming  of  the 
native  piano-forte  virtuoso.  I  fear  that  the  newspapers  will 
reproach  me  with  the  same  thing,  especially  as  the  daugh- 
ter of  an  editor  is  said  to  drum  frightfully.  However,  it 
does  not  matter;  as  this  cannot  be  helped,  I  would  rather 
that  people  say  I  play  too  delicately  than  too  roughly." 

For  his  second  concert  Count  Lichnowski  offered  him 
his  own  piano,  thinking  that  his  feeble  tone  might  be  due 
to  the  instrument  used.  But  Chopin  replied:  "This  is  my 
manner  of  playing,  which  pleases  the  ladies  so  much." 
Upon  which  Niecks  comments:  "Chopin  was  already 
then,  and  remained  all  his  life,  nay,  even  became  more 
and  more,  the  ladies'  pianist  par  excellence.  By  which, 
however,  I  do  not  mean  that  he  did  not  please  the  men, 
but  only  that  no  other  pianist  was  equally  successful  in 
touching  the  most  tender  and  intimate  chords  of  the  female 
heart.  Indeed,  a  high  degree  of  refinement  in  thought  and 
feeling,  combined  with  a  poetic  disposition,  are  indispen- 
sable requisites  for  an  adequate  appreciation  of  Chopin's 
compositions  and  style  of  playing.    His  remark,  therefore, 


264  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

that  he  had  captivated  the  learned  and  the  poetic  natures, 
was  no  doubt  strictly  correct  with  regard  to  his  success  in 
Vienna;  but  at  the  same  time  it  may  be  accepted  as  a  sig- 
nificant foreshadowing  of  his  whole  artistic  career."  * 

Some  years  later,  when  Chopin  had  made  his  home  per- 
manently in  Paris,  Berlioz  wrote  regarding  his  playing: 
*'To  be  able  to  appreciate  him  wholly,  I  think  it  necessary 
to  hear  him  when  you  are  near  him  in  the  salon  rather 
than  in  the  theatre.  .  .•  .  Unfortunately,  scarcely  any 
one  besides  Chopin  himself  can  play  this  music  and  give  it 
the  character  of  something  unexpected,  unforeseen,  which 
is  one  of  its  chief  charms.  His  performance  is  veined 
with  a  thousand  nuances  in  the  movement.  He  holds 
the  secrets  of  these  nuances,  which  cannot  be  pointed 
out.  There  are  incredible  details  in  his  mazurkas,  and  he 
has  found  how  to  make  them  doubly  interesting  by  playing 
them  with  the  utmost  degree  of  ^gentleness,  with  a  super- 
lative softness.  The  hammers  just  graze  the  strings  so 
that  the  hearer  is  tempted  to  draw  near  the  instrument  and 
strain  his  ear,  as  though  he  were  at  a  concert  of  sylphs  and 
will-o'-the-wisps. ' ' 

Nevertheless,  it  would  be  a  fatal  mistake  to  suppose 
that  because  Chopin  himself  played  usually  with  a  light- 
ness of  touch,  a  delicacy,  and  a  gracefulness  that  won  for 
him  the  name  of  Ariel  of  the  piano-forte,  others  must  play 
his  music  in  the  same  way.  Moscheles  explained  the  mys- 
tery why,  in  Chopin's  playing,  one  did  not  miss  the  thunder- 
ous power  of  other  pianists:  "His  piano  is  so  softly  breathed 

*  Frederick  Chopin  as  a  Man  and  a  Musician.  By  Frederick  Niecks. 
London  and  New  York:  Novello,  Ewer  &  Co.  1890.  2  vols.  This 
is  the  most  elaborate  of  the  Chopin  biographies,  an  invaluable  depository 
of  facts.  To  those  who  prefer  a  shorter  work,  more  reliable  in  some  of  its 
critical  verdicts,  James  Huneker's  Chopin,  the  Man  and  His  Music  (New 
York:  Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  1900),  cannot  be  too  highly  recommended. 
It  abounds  in  hints  as  to  the  correct  interpretation  of  the  unique  composi- 
tions of  the  greatest  poet  of  the  piano-forte,  of  whom  Saint-Saens  has 
justly  said  that  he  revolutionized  modern  music. 


CHOPIN  AS  PIANIST  AND  TEACHER    265 

forth  that  he  does  not  need  any  strong  forte  in  order  to  pro- 
duce the  wished- for  contrasts;  it  is  for  this  reason  that  one 
does  not  miss  the  orchestra-like  effects  which  the  German 
school  demands  from  a  piano-forte  player." 

Moreover,  there  were  times  when  Chopin  did  play  with 
big  tone  and  with  power.  His  pupil,  Mathias,  said  he  had 
extraordinary  vigor,  but  only  in  flashes.  Another  pupil, 
Mikuli,  wrote:  "The  tone  which  Chopin  brought  out  of 
the  piano-forte  was  always,  especially  in  the  cantabiles, 
immense  (riesengross);  only  Field  could  perhaps  in  this 
respect  be  compared  to  him.  A  manly  energy  gave  to 
appropriate  passages  overpowering  effect — energy  without 
roughness  (Rohheit).^' 

It  must  be  remembered  that  Chopin  seldom  played  in 
public  and  that  few  opportunities  were  therefore  given  to 
hear  him  in  his  works  of  the  grand  style,  specially  suitable 
for  a  large  hall.  To  be  sure,  he  had  not  the  physique  of 
Rubinstein  or  Liszt  and  could  not,  had  he  wished,  thun- 
der forth  his  polonaises  and  diverse  grand  climaxes  as 
they  did,  or  as  Paderewski  does;  and  this  was  true  par- 
ticularly in  the  last  years  of  his  life  when  he  became  so 
weak  that  sometimes,  as  Stephen  Heller  told  Niecks,  his 
playing  was  hardly  audible.  But  it  would  obviously  be 
foolish  to  accept  such  individual  lack  of  muscularity  as 
the  key-note  for  the  performance  of  music  which  is  often 
delicate  and  feminine,  but  seldom,  if  ever,  morbid  and 
effeminate,  as  one  is  often  led  to  suppose  by  the  way  it  is 
played — or,  rather,  was  played — for  the  pendulum  has 
now  swung  the  other  way;  many  pianists  play  not  only  the 
polonaises  and  scherzos  and  other  unmistakably  masculine 
Chopin  pieces  in  the  muscular  grand  style,  but  also  the 
others  that  are  cast  in  more  delicate  mould;  so  that  Philip 
Hale  has  not  without  reason  poured  out  the  vials  of  his 
sarcasm  on  those  contemporary  pianists  who  play  Chopin 
altogether  as  if  his  pieces  had  been  written  for  a  modern 


266  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

and  gigantic  piano-forte  built  to  vie  with  the  fullest  modern 
orchestra. 

Huneker's  verdict  hits  the  nail  on  the  head:  "Chopin 
had,  we  know,  his  salon  side,  when  he  played  with  elegance 
brilliancy,  and  coquetry.  But  he  had  dark  moments  when 
the  key-board  was  too  small,  his  ideas  too  big  for  utterance. 
Then  he  astounded,  thrilled  his  auditors.  They  were  rare 
moments.  ...  Of  Karl  Tausig,  Weitzmann  said  that 
*he  relieved  the  romantically  sentimental  Chopin  of  his 
Weltschmerz  and  showed  him  in  his  pristine  vigor  and 
wealth  of  imagination.'  In  Chopin's  music  there  are  many 
pianists,  many  styles,  and  all  are  correct  if  they  are  poetic- 
ally musical,  logical,  and  individually  sincere." 

When  Chopin  was  asked  to  repeat  a  piece,  he  was  likely 
to  do  so  with  quite  different  nuances  from  those  of  the  first 
time.  His  music,  more  than  any  other,  lends  itself  to  in- 
dividual, subjective  interpretation,  and  this  is  one  of  many 
reasons  why  he  is  the  favorite  of  both  players  and  audi- 
ences. 

To  Schumann  we  owe  the  most  poetic  description  of 
Chopin's  playing — a  description  every  word  of  which 
should  be  engraved  in  the  pupil's  memory;  it  is  worth  more 
than  a  hundred  ordinary  lessons  to  those  aiming  at  success 
as  Chopin  interpreters:  "Imagine  an  ^olian  harp  that 
had  all  the  scales,  and  that  these  were  jumbled  together  by 
the  hand  of  an  artist  into  all  sorts  of  fantastic  ornaments, 
.  but  in  such  a  manner  that  a  deeper  fundamental  tone  and 
j  a  softly  singing  higher  part  were  always  audible,  and  you 
have  an  approximate  idea  of  his  playing:"  This  refers  par- 
ticularly to  the  first  ^tude  in  A  flat,  which  Schumann  calls 
"a  poem  rather  than  an  ^tude."  He  proceeds:  "It  would 
be  a  mistake,  however,  to  suppose  that  he  brought  out 
every  one  of  the  little  notes  with  distinctness;  it  was  more 
like  a  billowing  of  the  A  flat  major  chord,  swelled  anew 
here  and  there  by  means  of  the  pedal;  but  through  the 


CHOPIN  AS  PIANIST  AND  TEACHER   267 

harmonies  were  heard  the  sustained  tones  of  a  wondrous 
melody,  and  only  in  the  middle  of  it  did  a  tenor  part  once 
come  into  greater  prominence  amid  the  chords  along  with 
that  principal  cantilena.  After  listening  to  the  study  one 
feels  as  one  does  after  a  blissful  vision,  seen  in  a  dream, 
which,  already  half  awake,  one  would  fain  bring  back." 

''Like  a  billowing  of  the  A  flat  major  chord,  swelled 
anew  here  and  there  by  the  pedal"  —  in  that  sentence 
Schumann  calls  attention  to  one  of  the  main  secrets  of  the 
ravishing  beauty  of  Chopin's  performances — the  source  of 
that  luscious  quality  and  variety  of  tone-coloring  which  is 
of  the  very  essence  of  Chopin  playing — the  magic  of  the 
sustaining  pedal. 

Moscheles  wrote  that  ''a  good  pianist  uses  the  pedals  as 
little  as  possible;  too  frequent  use  leads  to  abuse.  More- 
over, why  should  he  try  to  produce  an  effect  with  his  feet 
instead  of  his  hands?  A  horseman  might  as  well  use  his 
spur  instead  of  the  bridle." 

The  difference  between  the  old-style  piano  playing  and 
the  new  is  suggestively  summed  up  in  those  three  sen- 
tences. Why,  indeed,  should  a  pianist  try  to  produce  an 
effect  with  his  feet  ?  Because  the  pedal  opens  the  gate  to  a 
wealth  and  variety  of  color  effects  of  which  the  older 
pianists  never  dreamed.  The  explanation  is  very  simple. 
Pressing  the  right  pedal  removes  the  dampers  from  all  the 
strings  and  thus  allows  the  overtones  of  each  tone  that  is 
struck  to  vibrate  along  sympathetically.  It  is  to  these  over- 
tones that  differences  of  timbre  or  tone-color  are  due;  and 
it  is  easy  to  see,  therefore,  that  differences  in  touch  and  in 
harmonies  place  at  the  pianist's  command  an  immense 
variety  of  new  and  ravishmg  color  effects.  This  is  one 
reason  why  in  all  piano  music,  from  Bach  to  MacDowell, 
the  pedal  should  not  be  used  "as  little  as  possible,"  but  as 
much  as  possible.  It  is  doubtless  the  reason  why  Bee- 
thoven used  it,  as  we  have  seen,  far  more  than  is  indicated 


268  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

in  his  printed  works.  In  Chopin's  music  it  is  absolutely 
indispensable  at  nearly  every  moment.  The  perfect  Cho- 
pin player  keeps  his  right  foot  on  the  pedal  all  the  time 
except  when  a  run  or  a  change  of  harmony  compels  him  to 
release  it  for  a  second  or  two;  then  down  it  goes  again,  if 
necessary  ten  times  in  a  bar. 

In  Chopin's  case  the  "ravishing  harmonies  and  melodic 
resonances  which  astounded  and  fascinated"  his  hearers 
were  due  to  another  consequence  of  the  continuous  em- 
ployment of  the  sustaining  pedal.  By  means  of  it  he  was 
able  to  scatter  the  component  tones  of  a  chord  over  the 
whole  key-board,  thus  producing  a  multitude  of  entirely 
new  and  enchanting  harmonic  color  effects.  The  germs 
of  this  procedure  were  not  his  own;  in  Hummel,  and  still 
more  in  Field,  we  come  across  rolling  arpeggios,  wide 
melodic  intervals,  and  broken  chords  scattered  over  the 
key-board;  but  with  them  these  things  are  incidental  and 
not  essential,  whereas  of  Chopin  they  constitute  the  very 
physiognomy,  without  which  we  should  not  recognize 
him.  One  can  fancy  the  thrills  of  delight  that  must  have 
agitated  his  sensitive  frame  as  he  made  these  discoveries 
of  flower  gardens  in  what  had  been  theretofore  the  dark 
continent  of  sound.  To  his  pupils  he  used  to  say:  "The 
correct  employment  of  the  pedal  remains  a  study  for  life." 

The  pedal  is  also  indispensable  to  tjie  proper  perform- 
ance of  those  dainty  ornaments  with  which  Chopin  loves 
to  decorate  his  melodies  and  which  usually  coalesce  into 
exquisite  harmonies.  It  would  be  a  great  mistake  to  com- 
pare them  to  the  fioriture — the  runs,  trills,  staccati,  and 
cadenzas  of  Rossini  and  Donizetti,  for  these  were  written 
for  their  own  sake,  to  give  the  singers  a  chance  to  astonish 
the  natives  with  their  brilliant  technic.  Chopin  never 
dreamed  of  thus  flaunting  his  technic  in  the  public's  face. 
His  embellishments  merely  serve  to  show  off  the  beauty 
of  his  melodies,  as  Venetian  laces  and  gauzy  Oriental 


CHOPIN  AS  PIANIST  AND  TEACHER    269 

fabrics  enhance  the  charms  of  beautiful  womenc.  To  pre- 
sent them  as  anything  but  gossamer  is  to  spoil  them.  The 
contours  of  the  melodic  body  must  remain  visible  beneath 
them.  ; 

Chopin  further  enhanced  the  romantic  quality  of  his 
music  by  the  constant  use  of  the  tempo  rubato.  On  this 
point  there  have  long  prevailed  the  most  amazing  miscon- 
ceptions. Rubato  means  robbed,  and  it  would  almost 
seem  as  if  most  of  the  historians,  biographers,  lexicog- 
raphers, and  critics,  in  writing  about  Chopin's  rubato,  had 
been  temporarily  robbed  of  their  wits.  They  are  impressed, 
puzzled,  paralyzed,  convinced  by  the  testimony  of  several 
of  his  pupils  that  he  used  to  say  to  them  that  however 
much  the  right  hand  might  fluctuate  in  pace,  the  left 
"must  always  play  strictly  in  time." 

Now,  it  is  of  course  possible  that  he  may  have  said  this 
to  his  pupils.  "Chopin  was  unfortunate  in  his  pupils," 
wrote  Liszt:  "None  of  them  has  become  a  player  of  any 
importance";  and  Hans  von  Biilow  remarked  that 
"Chopin's  pupils  are  as  unreliable  as  the  girls  who  pose 
as  Liszt's  pupils."  *  He  may  have  become  disheartened 
by  the  attempts  of  such  students  to  imitate  his  elastic  tempi 
and  told  them,  when  practising,  to  keep  strict  time,  which, 
after  all,  was  preferable  to  the  caricature  their  efforts  were 
likely  to  degenerate  into.  But  to  suppose  that  he,  the 
poet  of  the  piano-forte,  played  metronomically,  is  to  sup- 
pose the  impossible;  it  is  tantamount  to  denying  him  all 
artistic  taste  and  instinct. 

Liszt,  Rubinstein,  Paderewski,  all  the  great  modem, 
pianists,  play  Chopin's  music,  as  well  as  their  own,  with 
modifications  of  pace  that  involve  both  hands;  they  play 
Schubert,  they  play  Beethoven,  they  play  Bach  that  way 
— and  we  are  asked  to  believe  that  Chopin  was  so  dry,  so 

*  A  propos  of  the  edition  of  Chopin's  works  issued  by  his  pupils.  Biilow 
advised  students  to  use  the  Klindworth  edition. 


270  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

stiff,  so  inelastic,  unpoetic,  mechanical,  metronomic,  that 
a  dancing-master  could  have  beaten  time  for  him  ! 

Fortunately  we  have  on  this  point  the  testimony  of 
France's  leading  composer.  Hector  ^Berlioz,  which  is 
worth  more  than  that  of  any  number  of  pupils  such  as 
Chopin  had  as  to  how  he  actually  played:  Chopin,  he  said, 
"chafed  at  the  bridle  of  the  measure."  He  "could  not 
play  strictly  in  time  (ne  pouvait  pas  jouer  regulierement).''^ 

Liszt,  in  his  Lije  of  Chopin,  says  regarding  the  tempo 
rubato: 

By  this  peculiar  style  of  playing,  Chopin  imparted  with 
most  fascinating  effect  a  constant  rocking,  making  the 
melody  undulate  to  and  fro  like  a  skiff  driven  over  the 
bosom  of  tossing  waves.  This  manner  of  execution,  which 
set  so  peculiar  a  seal  upon  his  own  style  of  performance, 
was  first  indicated  by  the  words  Tempo  rubato  affixed  to 
his  works;  a  tempo  broken,  agitated,  interrupted;  a  move- 
ment flexible  while  it  was  abrupt  and  languishing,  and  as 
vacillating  as  the  flame  under  the  fluctuating  breath  which 
agitates  it.  This  direction  is  no  longer  to  be  found  in  his 
later  productions;  he  was  persuaded  that  if  the  player 
understood  them  he  would  divine  this  regular  irregularity. 
All  his  compositions  ought  to  be  played  with  this  accen- 
tuated and  measured  swaying  and  rocking,  though  it  is 
difficult  for  those  who  never  heard  him  play  to  catch  hold 
of  this  secret  of  their  proper  execution. 

How  the  unwary  may  be  deceived  in  this  matter  they 
can  easily  ascertain  in  listening  to  Chopin  II,  the  Polish 
Paderewski,  who  plays  most  composers  in  defiance  of  the 
metronome,  but  whose  freedom  of  pace  reaches  its  exotic 
climax  in  Chopin's  mazurkas.  His  irregularity  of  move- 
ment is  so  natural,  so  unconscious,  that  one  might  easily 
suppose  he  was  playing  in  strict  time.  Yet  any  incarnate 
metronome  trying  to  keep  pace  with  his  hands — right  or 
left — would  soon  be  landed  in  a  mad-house. 


CHOPIN  AS  PIANIST  AND  TEACHER   271 

To  play  Chopin's  mazurkas  and  many  other  pieces  of 
his  in  strict  time  is  to  rob  a  rose  of  its  fragrance,  to  make 
an  orchid  symmetrical.  It  is  related  by  a  contemporary 
that  sometimes,  to  make  his  friends  laugh,  he  played  one 
of  his  mazurkas  in  metronomic  time.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  seems  probable  that  he  himself  hardly  realized  how  very 
irregular  his  playing  was,  notably  also  in  the  accentuation. 
Lenz  relates*  that  one  day  when  he  was  playing  the  ma- 
zurka in  C,  op.  S3y  for  Chopin,  Meyerbeer  came  in  and  said 
he  was  playing  it  in  two-four  time.  Chopin  insisted  it 
was  three-four  time,  and  played  it  himself  the  way  he  had 
taught  it  to  Lenz,  getting  very  angry  finally  because  Mey- 
erbeer still  insisted  it  was  two-four.  The  German  pianist, 
Charles  Hall^,  informed  Niecks  that  one  day  he  told 
Chopin  that  he  played  in  his  mazurkas  often  four-four 
instead  of  three-four  time.  "Chopin  would  not  admit 
it  at  first,  but  when  Mr.  Halle  proved  his  case  by 
counting  to  Chopin's  playing,  the  latter  admitted  the 
correctness  of  the  observation,  and  laughing  said  that  this 
was  national."  t 

When  Chopin  was  only  twenty-one  years  of  age  he  re- 
ferred in  a  letter  to  his  "  perhaps  bold  but  noble  resolve — 
to  create  a  new  art  era."  He  carried  out  this  resolve  liter- 
ally. He  is  more  absolutely  original  and  unique  than  any 
other  composer  for  piano,  and  he  who  would  succeed  as  a 
Chopin  player  should  therefore  read  everything  he  can 
find  regarding  his  life  and  career,  so  as  to  be  able  to  enter 


*  Great  Piano  Virtuosos  of  Our  Time.  By  W.  von  Lenz.  English  by 
Madeleine  R.  Baker.    New  York:  G.  Schirmer. 

t  A  lamentable  amount  of  confusion  has  been  caused  by  the  pre- 
posterous "tradition"  that  in  playing  Chopin  the  left  hand  must  always 
play  in  strict  time.  The  absurdity  of  this  dictum  (which  reduces  the 
"rubato"  to  a  mere  mechanical  question  of  dotted  notes  in  the  right- 
hand  part)  will  be  further  exposed  in  a  later  chapter  (Hints  to  Pupils), 
in  which  an  attempt  will  also  be  made  to  discover  the  secret  of  tjie  true 
rubato  in  the  changing  emotional  Qfearacter  of  the  melody. 


272  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

more  fully  into  the  spirit  of  his  music.  His  success  in 
carrying  out  his  ''bold  but  noble  resolve"  is  the  more  re- 
markable inasmuch  as  he  was  practically  self-taught. 
His  teacher  was  not  much  of  a  pianist,  and  the  lessons 
ceased  when  Chopin  was  only  twelve.  As  a  matter  of 
course,  he  studied  the  works  of  the  masters,  notably  those 
of  Bach,  and  these  were  his  ''conservatory."  Lenz  asked 
him  whether  he  practised  on  the  day  when  he  gave  a  con- 
cert, and  Chopin  answered:    "It  is  a  terrible  time  for 

\  me;   I  dislike  to  play  in  public,  but  it  is  part  of  my 

;  \  position.    For  two  weeks  I  shut  myself  up  and  play  Bach. 

I  I  That  is  my  preparation;  I  do  not  practise  my  own  com- 

l  I  positions." 

^  I  Lenz  (who  is  not  always  reliable,  but  inf  these  things  he 
Junay  be  trusted)  gives  us  also  interesting  glimpses  of 
Chopin  as  a  teacher.  "You  must  be  punctual,"  he  said, 
- "  everything  with  me  goes  by  clockwork,  my  house  is  like 
a  dove-cote."  He  always  kept  his  watch  on  the  piano 
during  lessons  so  as  not  to  overstep  the  three-quarter 
hour.  When  he  was  pleased  with  the  way  a  pupil  had 
played  a  piece  he  took  his  small,  well-sharpened  pencil, 
and  made  a  cross  on  the  page. 

When  Mikuli  studied  with  him,  single  lessons  often 
lasted  for  hours  at  a  stretch,  till  exhaustion  overcame  mas- 
ter and  pupil.  Mme.  Streicher  also  relates  that  many  a 
day  she  began  at  one  o'clock  to  play  at  Chopin's,  "  and  only 
at  four  or  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  did  he  dismiss  us." 
She  had  been  told  that  he  made  his  pupils  study  Clementi, 
Hummel,  Cramer,  Moscheles,  Beethoven,  and  Bach,  but 
not  his  own  compositions.  "This  was  not  the  case,"  she 
says.  "To  be  sure,  I  had  to  study  with  him  the  works  of 
the  above-mentioned  masters,  but  he  also  required  me  to 
play  to  him  the  new  and  newest  compositions  of  Hiller, 
Thalberg,  Liszt,  etc.  And  already  in  the  first  lesson 
he  placed  before  me  his  wondrously  beautiful  Preludes 


CHOPIN  AS  PIANIST  AND  TEACHER    273 

and  Studies.    Indeed,  he  made  me  acquainted  with  many 
a  composition  before  it  had  appeared  in  print."    He  took 
infinite  pains  to  teach  pupils  his  legato,  cantabile  way  of 
playing,  and  his  severest  censure  was  "voujdo  not_knQ3K»« 
how  to  bind  together  two  notes."  "^"^ 

He  did  not  share  the  opinion  of  his  famous  contempo- 
rary Kalkbrenner  that  a  pupil  might  make  his  practice 
hours  less  tedious  by  reading  a  book  while  playing.  In 
the  words  of  Mikuli,  "he  taught  indefatigably  that  the 
exercises  in  question  were  no  mere  mechanical  ones,  but 
called  for  the  intelligence  and  the  whole  will  of  the  pupil, 
on  which  account  twenty  and  even  forty  thoughtless  repe- 
titions (up  to  this  time  the  arcanum  of  so  many  schools) 
do  no  good  at  all." 

Sometimes  he  was  irritable  and  got  very  angry;  to  cite 
Mikuli  again:  "Many  a  beautiful  eye  left  the  high  altar  of 
the  Cite  d' Orleans,  Rue  St.  Lazare,  bedewed  with  tears,  " 
without,  on  that  account,  ever  bearing  the  dearly  beloved 
master  the  least  grudge.  For  was  not  the  severity  which 
was  not  easily  satisfied  with  anything,  the  feverish  vehe- 
mence with  which  the  master  wished  to  raise  his  disciples 
to  his  own  stand-point,  the  ceaseless  repetition  of  a  pas- 
sage till  it  was  understood,  a  guarantee  that  he  had  at 
heart  the  progress  of  the  pupil  ?  A  holy  artistic  zeal  burnt 
in  him  then,  every  word  from  his  lips  was  incentive  and 
inspiring." 

He  hated  exaggeration  in  accentuation;  in  dynamic 
shading  he  was  most  particular  about  a  gradual  increase 
and  decrease  in  loudness.  He  never  thumped,  never 
allowed  any  admixture  of  noise  to  mar  the  purity  of  his 
tone.  His  pupils  he  advised  to  study  the  theory  of  music, 
to  play  with  others,  duos,  trios,  quartets,  and,  above  all,  to 
EeaPtlie  great  opera  singers.  His  practice  with  regard  to 
giving  examples  by  his  own  playing  appears  to  have  varied 
with  the  occasion  and  the  pupils,  for  while  some  assert 


274  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

that  he  often  played  at  a  second  piano,  or  took  up  nearly 
the  whole  lesson-hour  himself,  others  declare  that  he  taught 
chiefly  by  word  of  mouth,  seldom  touching  the  instru- 
ment.* 

*  Concerning  Chopin's  startling  innovations  in  fingering  and  other 
matters  of  technic,  which  carjnot  be  discussed  in  this  volume,  the  reader 
must  be  referred  to  Mikuli's  preface  to  his  edition  of  Chopin's  works;  to 
Niecks,  Vol.  II,  Chapter  XXVIII;  and  to  Huneker,  Part  IV.  It  is  to  be 
regretted  that  Chopin  never  carried  out  his  plan  of  writing  a  method.  A 
fragment  exists,  which  has  been  Englished  by  Mme.  Janotha.  "For  a 
long  time,"  he  says  in  this,  "players  have  acted  against  nature  in  seeking 
to  give  equal  power  to  each  finger." 


XVI 
LISZT  AND  HIS  PUPILS 

"  I  have  now  convinced  myself  that  you  are  the  greatest 
musician  of  all  times." 

Thus  wrote  Richard  Wagner  to  Franz  Liszt,  on  the 
6th  of  December,  1856,  a  year  in  which  he  had  given  up 
much  of  his  time  to  perusing  his  friend's  symphonic  poems. 

When  one  considers  the  extraordinary  diversity  of 
Liszt's  activities,  and  the  great  influence  he  exerted  in 
nearly  all  branches  of  music,  Wagner's  exclamation 
seems  justifiable.  True,  it  was  only  as  a  pianist  that  Liszt 
had  never  had  an  equal;  but  his  rank  in  all  other  branches 
of  the  art,  except  in  opera  and  chamber  music,  is  so  high 
that  the  sum  total  of  his  achievements  probably  does  make 
him  "the  greatest  musician  of  all  times."  He  certainly 
was  the  most  many-sided. 

Saint-Saens,  greatest  of  living  French  composers,  has 
been  so  impressed  by  Liszt's  influence  on  the  destinies  of 
the  piano-forte  that  he  knows  nothing,  he  writes,  to  com- 
pare to  it,  except  the  revolution  in  the  mechanism  of  the 
French  language  brought  about  by  Victor  Hugo.  "This 
influence,"  he  adds,  ''is  more  powerful  than  that  of  Paga- 
nini  on  the  violin  world,  because  the  latter  has  remained 
confined  to  the  region  of  the  inaccessible,  where  he  alone 
could  dwell,  whereas  Liszt,  starting  from  the  same  point, 
deigned  to  step  down  into  the  public  roads,  where  any  one 
who  is  willing  to  work  hard  may  follow  him." 

At  first,  it  is  true,  Liszt's  pieces  seemed  unplayable  by 
any  one  but  himself;   but  in  course  of  time  it  was  found 

275 


276  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

that  while  he  had  created  unprecedented  difficulties  for 
the  players,  he  had  also,  by  his  original  treatment  of  the 
fingers  and  a  more  picturesque  way  of  writing  music,  pro- 
vided the  means  of  overcoming  these  difficulties. 

He  was  the  first  to  reveal  the  full  sonority  of  the  piano- 
forte, and  its  capacity  for  reproducing  orchestral  effects. 
In  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  orchestras  and 
conductors  were  not  up  to  the  present  mark,  and  thou- 
sands of  amateurs  got  their  first  correct  conception  of 
Beethoven's  symphonies  by  hearing  Liszt  play  them  on 
his  piano-forte. 

Many  stories  are  told  regarding  the  marvellous  effect 
of  Liszt's  playing  on  his  audiences.  When  he  was  quite 
a  young  fellow  he  once  played  a  concerto  in  Paris  so  en- 
trancingly  that  the  members  of  the  orchestra  forgot  to  join 
him  again  at  the  proper  place,  to  the  delight  of  the  audi- 
ence. On  another  occasion  he  played  at  a  soirde  where 
one  of  the  guests  was  the  Empress  of  Russia,  whom  he  had 
offended  by  not  going  to  St.  Petersburg.  She  was  so  cold 
that  no  one  dared  to  applaud  his  first  pieces.  This  piqued 
Liszt,  and  he  made  up  his  mind  to  conquer.  His  next 
piece  was  Schubert's  Ave  Maria,  and  this  he  played  with 
such  soulful  expression  that  the  Empress  burst  into  tears, 
and  everybody  applauded  frantically. 

The  circumstances  which  led  to  Franz  Liszt's  suprem- 
acy among  pianists  are  of  romantic  interest,  as  well  as 
instructive  to  all  who  desire  to  know  the  secrets  of  his  suc- 
cess and  who  wish  to  reproduce  his  music  in  the  correct 
international  spirit.  Genius,  opportunity,  and  hard  work 
were  the  pillars  on  which  he  erected  his  temple  of  fame. 
His  genius  was  manifested  in  infancy;  at  the  age  of  nine 
he  already  played  in  public,  astonishing  his  hearers  par- 
ticularly by  his  improvisations.  Wealthy  admirers  con- 
tributed 600  florins  a  year  for  six  years,  which  enabled 
him  to  go  to  Vienna  to  study  with  Czerny  and  Salieri;  the 


LISZT  AND  HIS  PUPILS  277 

plan  of  placing  him  with  Hummel  at  Weimar  being  given 
up  because  that  famous  virtuoso  demanded  a  whole 
louis  d'or  a  lesson. 

The  key-note  of  Liszt's  art  is  cosmopolitanism,  and  this 
was  struck  early  in  his  career.  Hungary,  Austria,  Ger- 
many, Italy,  Poland,  and  France  contributed  their  share 
toward  his  education  and  the  development  of  his  genius. 
His  father  was  a  Hungarian  of  pure  Magyar  descent,  his 
mother  an  Austrian- German.  His  Austrian  teacher, 
Czerny,  not  only  improved  his  technic,  but  taught  him  the 
importance  of  attending  to  details  and  the  charm  of  ex- 
pression. At  the  age  of  eleven  (1822)  he  gave  his  first 
concert  in  Vienna,  and  it  was  in  the  following  year  that 
Beethoven  hastened  on  the  stage  and  embraced  and  kissed 
him  after  a  concert  which  had  made  the  public  wild  with 
delight. 

Chopin  was,  as  we  have  seen,  twelve  years  old  when  he 
got  his  last  lesson  on  the  piano.  Liszt  was  of  the  same 
age  when  he  left  Vienna  for  Paris.  He  wanted  to  continue 
his  lessons  there  at  the  Conservatoire,  but  Cherubini,  the 
director  of  that  institution,  was  prejudiced  against  young 
prodigies  and  rejected  him  by  referring  to  the  rule  exclud- 
ing foreigners;  thus  it  came  about  that  Liszt,  also,  never 
had  a  piano-forte  lesson  after  his  twelfth  year.  May  we 
infer  from  this  that  others  may  safely  follow  this  example  ? 
Yes — provided  they  have  the  same  genius,  the  same  artistic 
instincts,  the  same  capacity  for  hard  work,  the  same  musi- 
cal atmosphere  to  live  in. 

Liszt's  mind  was  at  this  time  and  for  years  to  come  like 
a  sponge,  or  a  piece  of  blotting-paper,  exceedingly  impres- 
sionable, absorbing  everything  it  came  in  contact  with. 
He  gave  concerts  in  French  and  English  cities,  and  else- 
where, but  made  his  home  in  Paris,  where  *'le  petit  Litz" 
had  become  a  great  pet,  in  society  as  well  as  in  the  concert 
halls.     His  mind  and  his  manners  were  formed  in  the 


278  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

salons  of  the  aristocracy,  where  he  met  all  the  great  men 
and  women  of  the  time.  When  his  father  died  and  his  pen- 
sion of  600  florins  a  year  had  expired,  he  helped  to  support 
himself  and  his  mother  by  giving  lessons.  Like  Chopin,  he 
was  treated  as  an  equal  by  the  members  of  the  nobility. 
He  became  interested  in  French  politics,  in  the  doctrines 
of  socialism;  he  absorbed  the  religious  mysticism  of  the 
time,  and  this,  combined  with  a  disappointment  in  love, 
caused  him  to  give  up  his  career  as  a  pianist.  He  wanted 
to  become  a  monk,  and  it  was  with  the  greatest  difficulty 
that  his  mother  dissuaded  him.  He  fell  ill,  was  reported 
to  have  died,  and  one  Paris  journal  actually  printed  an 
obituary  notice. 

It  required  a  strong  stimulus  to  win  him  back  to  music. 
This  stimulus  was  supplied  by  Paganini,  the  Italian  wizard 
of  the  violin,  who  came  to  Paris  in  183 1  and  amazed  him, 
as  he  did  everybody,  with  his  dazzling  and  seemingly  im- 
possible feats.  What  happened  then  is  told  by  his  prin- 
cipal German  biographer:*  "With  indescribable  eager- 
ness and  at  the  same  time  with  victorious  rejoicing,  Liszt, 
after  hearing  Paganini,  turned  again  to  his  instrument. 
He  was  seldom  seen,  never  as  a  performer  in  public.  His 
mother  alone  witnessed  silently  his  perseverance,  his  inde- 
fatigable toiiy 

He  was  constructing  wings  for  a  higher  and  bolder  flight 
than  any  other  pianist  had  ever  essayed.  What  Paganini 
had  done  for  the  violin,  revealing  its  unsuspected  capac- 
ities, Liszt  undertook  to  do  for  the  piano-forte,  and  with 
even  more  brilliant  success.  The  piano  is  an  instrument 
of  infinitely  wider  range  and  power  than  the  violin,  and  it 
took  a  greater  mind  than  Paganini's  to  achieve  this  triumph. 
Beginning  by  translating  for  his  instruments  the  violin  Ca- 
prices of  the  Italian,  he  thence  proceeded  to  convert  the 
piano  into  a  veritable  compendium  of  the  whole  orchestra. 
*  Lina  Ramann:  Franz  Lisst.     1880-94. 


LISZT  AND   HIS  PUPILS  279 

About  the  same  time  (183 1  and  1832)  his  impressionable 
mind  came  under  the  influence  of  two  other  new  and  stir- 
ring musical  forces:  Chopin  and  Berlioz.  The  second  of 
these  had  much  in  common  with  Paganini.  While  the 
Italian  revealed  unsuspected  powers  in  the  violin  the 
Frenchman  did  the  same  for  the  orchestra.  His  works 
also  interested  Liszt  in  program  (pictorial)  music  in  which 
he  was  destined  to  surpass  his  model.  The  essence  of  both 
Paganini  and  Berlioz  is  virtuosity,  which  aims  at  brilliant 
effects  for  their  own  sake.  It  was  therefore  extremely 
fortunate  that  Liszt,  when  undertaking  to  do  for  the  piano 
what  Paganini  and  Berlioz  had  done  for  the  orchestra,  was 
curbed  in  his  inclination  toward  mere  virtuosity  by  the 
strong  influence  of  Chopin  (and  later,  of  Wagner)  to  whom 
technic  was  always  a  mere  means  to  higher  ends. 

For  a  time,  however,  the  colt  was  bound  to  prance  and 
gallop  over  the  key-board,  working  off  superabundant 
animal  spirits.  When  Liszt  resumed  his  pianistic  career, 
in  1834,  he  exulted  in  displaying  his  marvellous  mastery 
of  the  piano-forte,  and  it  is  undeniable  that  his  animal 
spirits  sometimes  ran  away  with  his  artistic  judgment. 
His  censors  have  often  pointed  the  finger  of  scorn  at 
his  operatic  fantasias  and  paraphrases  as  being  mere 
show  pieces.  Some  of  them  are,  indeed,  little  more  than 
that;  they  were  written  in  Italy,  for  the  Italians,  and 
adapted  to  their  taste.  In  the  thirties  of  the  last  century 
the  public  wanted  operatic  melodies  even  in  the  concert 
hall  beyond  everything  else.  In  Italy,  in  particular, 
where  piano  concerts  never  were  much  liked,  Liszt  had  the 
alternative  of  either  playing  to  empty  benches  or  producing 
fantasias  on  popular  operas.  Even  his  brilliant  Etudes 
were  not  wanted.  **  Studies,"  the  Italians  exclaimed, 
"belong  in  the  studio,  not  in  the  concert  hall."  He  had  to 
tempt  them  with  operatic  dainties  else  they  would  have 
refused  the  more  substantial  fare  he  had  to  offer. 


28o  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

Most  of  the  operatic  fantasias  are,  nevertheless,  real 
works  of  art.  "There  is  a  great  deal  of  pedantry  and 
prejudice  in  the  scorn  which  people  often  affect  for  works 
like  the  fantasia  on  Don  Juan,"  as  Saint-Saens  has  truly 
remarked.  With  inimitable  art  Liszt  selected  the  melodic 
gems  of  diverse  operas  and  gave  them  a  new  jeweller's 
setting.  Some  of  those  operas  are  now  obsolete,  but  their 
essence  is  preserved  for  us  conveniently  in  these  fantasias. 
Pianists  who  are  not  afraid  of  pedantic  critics  can  still  win 
brilliant  and  legitimate  successes  with  these  pieces;  but  as 
the  modern  taste  is  no  longer  for  operatic  melodies  in  the 
concert  halls,  it  is  advisable  to  reserve  them  as  a  rule  for 
cities  which  have  little  or  no  opera. 

What  are  the  pieces  with  which  a  concert  pianist  at  the 
present  time  is  surest  to  delight  an  audience,  provided  he 
plays  them  well?  Having  been  for  twenty-eight  years  a 
newspaper  critic  in  a  city  where  all  the  great  players  are 
heard,  I  can  answer  that  question  accurately:  the  Etudes 
of  Chopin  and  Liszt's  Hungarian  rhapsodies.  These  rhap- 
sodies constitute  an  anthology  of  the  exquisite  folk  melo- 
dies of  Hungary  as  played  by  the  gypsies,  so  cleverly  trans- 
ferred to  the  piano  that  as  even  Dr.  Hanslick  (Liszt's  chief 
enemy)  could  not  help  exclaiming,  they  make  us  think  we 
are  listening  to  the  very  instruments  played  by  the  gypsies. 
We  hear  in  them  also  the  diatonic  and  chromatic  runs,  the 
tremolos,  appoggiaturas,  arpeggios,  and  gruppetti  with 
which  the  gypsies  decorated  the  fascinating  Magyar  mel- 
odies. These  melodies  are  musical  odes,  ballads,  elegies, 
idyls,  songs  of  war,  of  grief,  of  love,  and  conviviality, 
welded  into  musical  epics  as  the  legends  of  ancient  Greece 
were  welded  by  Homer  into  his  epics.  They  are  immortal 
folk  melodies,  unsurpassed  in  melodic  originality  and 
beauty,  unequalled  in  rhythmic  variety;  and  Liszt  has 
still  further  and  immensely  enhanced  their  charm  by  weld- 
ing them  to  appropriate  harmonies,  as  daring,  as  wild,  as 


LISZT  AND  HIS  PUPILS  281 

languishing  or  passionate,  as  the  melodies  themselves — 
and  by  lavishing  on  them  an  astounding  wealth  of  pianistic 
bravura,  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word,  a  bravura  seemingly 
exhausting  all  the  resources  of  the  modern  grand  piano  in 
the  way  of  brilliancy,  sonority,  variety  of  tone  color,  and 
dazzling  skill  of  execution. 

But  they  must  be  played  as  Liszt  played  them,  as  the 
gypsies  played  the  melodies  and  the  ornaments  he  borrowed 
from  them.  No  pianist,  no  matter  how  clever  he  may  be, 
can  render  this  music  in  the  proper  spirit  unless  he  has 
read  Liszt's  book  on  The  Gypus  and  Their  Music*..  That 
book  wiIT  give  him  a  thousand  ideas;  it  will  fan  the  enthu- 
siasm without  which  the  most  astounding  technic  is  dull; 
it  will  teach  him  that  the  true  art  of  playing  is  improvisa- 
tion, the  unfettered,  irregular  art  of  the  gypsy,  to  whom 
technic  is  not  an  end  in  itself  but  a  means  to  an  end — the 
expression  of   his  melancholy  or   fiery  feelings.     These 

-- gypsies  may  not  be  geniuses,  yet  they  play  like  geniuses. 
^' Liszt  played  not  only  the  rhapsodies  but  all  his  music 

-  more-  or  less  after  the  fashion  of  gypsy  improvisations. 

^f  Chopin  needs  the  genuine  rubato,  Liszt,  in  these  rhap- 

^  sodies  and  in  most  of  his  original  compositions,  still  more 
imperatively  demands  it  —  an  incessant  modification  of 
pace,  now  abrupt,  now  subtle  and  scarcely  perceptible, — 
imparting  life  and  expression  to  every  bar.  And  if  the  sus- 
taining pedal  is  indispensable  to  Chopin,  in  whose  music 
there  is,  as  Lenz  has  aptly  said,  ''no  trace  of  opera  or 
symphony,"  how  much  more  so  to  Liszt,  who  makes  the 
key-board  do  duty  also  for  gypsy  bands,  for'  grand  operatic 
ensembles,  for  all  the  clangtints  and  sonorities  of  the 
orchestral  instruments! 

In  some  of  Liszt's  piano  pieces  we  hear  broad  melodies 
lusciously  sung  on  the  horns  or  cellos;  in  others  we  are 
impressed  by  the  sustained  harmonies  of  an  organ;  in  still 
others  (for  instance  The  Legend  of  St.  Francis  Walking  on 


282  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

the  Waves,  or  TelVs  Chapel)  majestic  trombone  chords  stir 
the  listeners.  But  none  of  these  effects  can  be  properly  pro- 
duced unless  the  player  has  that  skilful,  intelligent  control  of 
the  pedal  which,  as  Chopin  said,  is  the  study  of  a  lifetime.* 

Amy  Fay  one  day  asked  Liszt  how  he  produced  a  certain 
effect  he  made  in  his  arrangement  of  the  ballad  in  Wag- 
ner's Flying  Dutchman.  He  smiled,  and  played  the  pas^ 
sage  for  her.  "It  was,"  she  continues,  "a  long  arpeggio, 
and  the  effect  he  made  was,  as  I  had  supposed,  a  pedal 
effect.  He  kept  the  pedal  down  throughout,  and  played 
the  beginning  of  the  passage  in  a  grand,  rolling  sort  of 
manner,  and  then  all  the  rest  of  it  with  a  very  pianissimo 
touch,  and  so  lightly  that  the  continuity  of  the  arpeggios 
was  destroyed,  and  the  notes  seemed  to  be  just  strewn  in,  as 
if  you  broke  a  wreath  of  flowers  and  scattered  them  accord- 
ing to  your  fancy.  It  is  a  most  striking  and  beautiful  effect." 

Klindworth  wrote  that  "Liszt  did  the  most  astonishing 
things  with  his  left  thumb,  making  one  think  it  must  be 
doubly  as  long  as  an  ordinary  thumb."  He  certainly  had 
an  ideal  hand  for  piano-forte  playing,  his  fingers  being  not 
only  unusually  long  but  connected  by  such  elastic  sinews 
that  he  could  play  as  easily  in  tenths  as  others  can  in  octaves. 
But  this  was  not  the  secret  of  his  success.  Nor  can  his 
triumphs  be  explained  by  reference  to  the  amazing  tech- 
nical facility  he  acquired  by  incessant  practising  in  his 
youth — one  of  his  daily  exercises  being  the  transposition  of 
one  of  Bach's  preludes  and  fugues  into  all  the  twenty-four 
keys.  Dazzling  as  was  his  technic,  it  has  probably,  as  one 
of  the  leading  German  pedagogues,  Rudolf  M.  Breit- 
haupt,  maintains,  been  surpassed  since  by  D 'Albert,  Bu- 

*  Two  articles  on  Liszt's  Klaviertechnik,  by  Rudolph  M.  Breithaupt,  in 
the  Berlin  periodical  Die  Musik,  5.  Jahr  Heft  13  and  14,  and  the  section 
entitled  Liszt-Stil,  in  his  Die  natiiraliche  Klaviertechnik,  2d  edition,  can- 
not be  too  highly  commended  to  the  student  seeking  a  knowledge  of 
Lizst's  innovations  in  piano  playing.  See  also  the  excellent  commentary, 
Liszt-Pcedagogium  (Breitkopf  &  Hartel). 


LISZT  AND  HIS  PUPILS  283 

soni,  Godowski,  and  other  virtuosos  of  our  time.  What 
gave  him  his  tremendous  power  over  audiences  was  the 
fact  that  'Sis  technic  was  spiritualized,  was  made  sub- 
servient to  the"  will  of  a  unique,  inspired  personality.  That 
Vas  the  reason  why,  as  Tausig  said,  "No  mortal  can  vie 
with  Liszt;  he  dwells  upon  a  solitary  height."  His  great 
rival,  Thalberg,  we  are  assured,  played  scales  and  deco- 
rative passages  more  evenly  and  with  a  finer  jeu  perle,  but 
he  had  not  Liszt's  soul. 

The  belief  that  Liszt  was  the  greatest  technical  wonder 
of  all  time  has  actually  done  him  great  harm,  for  it  has 
distracted  attention  from  the  temperamental,  personal, 
emotional  qualities  which  were  the  real  secret  of  his  un- 
equalled success.  One  of  the  most  prominent  American 
critics  wrote  only  a  few  years  ago  that  "  technic  is,  indeed, 
not  everything,  though  so  eminent  a  pianist  as  Franz 
Liszt  said  it  was."  Others  have  put  it  in  this  way:  Liszt 
said  the  three  necessitiess  for  piano  playing  were:  "first, 
technic ;  second,  technic ;  third,  technic. ' '  Liszt  was  the  last 
person  in  the  world  to  make  such  a  silly  assertion.  What 
he  did  say  was:  "Technical  perfection  is  nothing  more 
than  an  artist's  accursed  duty,  but  not  a  special  merit." 

To  realize  his  attitude  toward  mere  technic  we  must 
read  what  he  wrote  in  1841,  shortly  after  the  death  of 
Paganini,  when  he  himself  had  just  begun  the  great  decade 
of  his  pianistic  achievements,  and  when  his  juvenile  en- 
thusiasm over  the  dazzling  achievements  of  that  violinist 
had  subsided: 

I  say  it  without  hesitation:  there  will  never  be  another 
Paganini.  The  extraordinary  coincidence  of  a  gigantic 
talent  with  all  the  circumstances  required  for  its  apotheosis 
will  remain  an  isolated  instance  in  the  history  of  art.  If 
an  artist  at  the  present  day  were  to  attempt,  like  Paganini, 
to  astonish  the  world  by  deliberately  assuming  a  garb  of 
mystification,  he  would  not  create  any  surprise,  and — even 


284  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

supposing  him  to  have  an  invaluable  talent — the  recollec- 
tion of  Paganini  would  subject  him  to  the  charge  of  char- 
latanry and  plagiarism.  Moreover,  the  public  of  our  time 
demands  other  things  of  an  artist  who  seeks  its  favor,  and 
the  way  to  fame  and  power  lies  in  an  opposite  direction. 
.  .  .  May  the  artist  of  the  future  cheerfully  renounce  the 
vain,  egotistic  r61e  which,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  has  found  in 
Paganini  its  last  brilliant  representative;  and  may  he  place 
his  goal  within  and  not  without  himself,  making  virtuosity 
"a"£aeans,  never  an  end. 

Upon  this  Prof.  Hugo  Riemann  comments  in  words 
which  should  be  branded  with  red-hot  irons  into  the  soul 
of  every  student  of  music: 

"Liszt's  prediction  has  been  verified;  though  hundreds 
have  tried  since  Paganini  to  win,  like  him,  a  royal  place  in 
the  concert  hall  by  means  of  brilliant  technical  achieve- 
ments, none  has  succeeded.  But  the  '  opposite  way,'  indi- 
cated by  Liszt,  has  been  trodden  by  more  and  more  seri- 
ously ambitious  artists.  This  way  lies  in  '  the  disposition 
to  regard  art  not  as  a  convenient  method  of  securing  selfish 
advantages  and  sterile  fame,  but  as  a  sympathetic  bond  of 
union  between  human  beings  .  .  .  and  a  means  of  nour- 
ishing in  the  public  mind  an  enthusiasm  for  the  beautiful 
which  is  so  closely  allied  to  the  good.'  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  epoch  of  the  virtuosos,  which  culminates  in  the  won- 
derful Paganini,  came  to  an  end  with  him,  and  its  place 
was  taken  by  the  epoch  of  interpreters.^^ 

Interpreter  versus  virtuoso!  In  those  words  lies  the 
essence  of  the  true  Lisztism.  He  was  the  first  to  interpret 
Bach  at  piano  recitals;  the  first  to  play  Beethoven's  sona- 
tas in  public;  the  first  to  make  Schubert's  songs  popular, 
through  his  transcriptions;  the  first  who  did  missionary 
work  for  the  living  as  well  as  the  dead  by  his  inspired  inter- 
pretations. What  made  Liszt  irresistible  was  not  only  his 
good  playing  but^th^ggod  music  he  played^ 


LISZT  AND  HIS  PUPILS  285 

The  ludicrous  notion  that  Liszt,  the  greatest  interpreter, 
"the  greatest  musician  of  all  time,"  stood  only  for  technic 
arose  from  the  fact  thatjonost  of  the  pianists  who  play  his 
own  pieces  are  so  taken  up  with  the  difficult  technic  that 
their  poetic  significance  and  beauty  escape  them,  When 
Paderewski  plays  them  the  error  is  exposed,  and  we  are 
entranced  by  the  emotional  charm,  the  tenderness,  the 
pathos,  and  the  passion  of  Liszt's  music — that  is,  the  best 
of  it;  for  among  his  385  original  compositions  there  is — as 
in  the  case  of  all  great  masters — much  that  falls  below  the 
level  of  his  best  work. 

The  cosmopolitan  training  he  received  in  his  youth 
helped  him  to  become  the  most  many-sided  interpreter  the 
art  world  has  known,  an  interpreter  with  "a  previously 
unknown  capacity  for  entering  into  the  peculiarities  of  the 
most  widely  separated  epochs,  styles,  and  individualities," 
as  the  historian.  Professor  Riemann,  has  well  said.  In 
one  of  Chopin's  letters  occur  these  sentences:  "I  write  to 
you  without  knowing  what  my  pen  is  scribbling,  for  Liszt 
is  at  this  moment  playing  my  studies  and  transports  me 
out  of  my  proper  senses.  I  should  like  to  rob  him  of  his 
way  of  rendering  my  own  etudes."  Wagner  said  that 
no  one  could  know  what  the  Beethoven  sonatas  really  are 
unless  he  had  heard  them  as  interpreted  by  Liszt.  Schu- 
mann wrote  to  Clara  Wieck  in  1840:  "I  wish  you  could 
have  heard  Liszt  this  morning.  He  is  most  extraordinary. 
He  played  some  of  my  own  compositions — the  Novelettes, 
the  Fantasia,  the  Sonata — in  a  way  that  moved  me  deeply. 
Many  of  the  details  were  quite  different  from  the  way  I 
conceived  them,  but  always  inspired  by  genius."  Was  it 
Liszt's  "technic"  that  aroused  the  enthusiasm  of  Chopin, 
Wagner,  Schumann? 

What  Schumann  wrote  about  Liszt's  playing  was  after 
hearing  him  in  a  private  music-room.  Yet,  evidently,  he 
found  the  great  pianist  still  more  impressive  in  the  concert 


286  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

hall.  After  a  Dresden  concert  he  wrote:  "I  had  heard 
him  before;  but  it  makes  a  difference  to  the  hearer  as  well 
as  the  artist  whether  he  plays  for  one  or  for  the  public. 
The  beautiful  hall,  the  bright  lights,  the  well-dressed  as- 
semblage— all  this  affects  the  mood  of  the  giver  as  well  as 
of  the  receiver."  He  then  goes  on  to  relate  how  Liszt  at 
first  seemed  to  play  not  only  for  the  public  but  with  it,  till 
he  had  got  it  completely  in  his  power,  to  do  with  as  he 
pleased.  "  Within  a  second  he  changes  from  tenderness  to 
boldness,  to  fragrance,  to  madness:  the  instrument  glows 
and  scintillates  under  its  master.  .  .  .  But  one  must  see 
as  well  as  hear  all  this;  it  would  never  do  for  Liszt  to  sit 
behind  a  screen;  a  great  amount  of  poetry  would  be  lost 
thereby."  Chopin,  he  adds,  "equals  him  in  fairy-hke  ten- 
derness and  grace,"  and  other  players  may  not  be  his  in- 
feriors in  this  or  that  trait,  but  "in  energy  and  boldness 
they  must  all  yield  the  palm  to  him." 

When  Amy  Fay,  after  Liszt  had  played  for  her  that 
pedal  effect  in  the  Flying  Dutchman,  told  him  she  didn't 
see  how  he  ever  thought  of  such  a  striking  and  beautiful 
effect,  he  answered  indifferently:  "Oh,  I've  invented  a 
great  many  things,  this,  for  instance" — and  he  began 
playing  a  double  roll  of  octaves  in  chromatics  in  the  bass 
of  the  piano.  It  was  very  grand  and  made  the  room  rever- 
berate. "Magnificent,"  she  said;  and  he  asked:  "Did 
you  ever  hear  me  do  a  storm ? "  "No."  "Ah,  you  ought 
to  hear  me  do  a  storm!  Storms  are  my  jorteT*  Then  to 
himself  between  his  teeth,  while  a  weird  look  came  into 
his  eyes  as  if  he  could  indeed  rule  the  blast,  "Da  Krachen 
die  B'dume  (Then  crash  the  trees)!" 

Such  was  Franz  Liszt,  the  pianist.  His  concert  career 
was  a  delirium  of  enthusiasm — until  the  year  1847.  Then 
happened  something  strange  and  unprecedented.  The 
king  abdicated!  In  the  height  of  his  powers  and  his  pop- 
ularity, having  conquered  every  realm  of  the  pianist's  art 


LISZT  AND  HIS  PUPILS  287 

and  beaten  all  other  players  in  their  own  fields,  he  laid 
down  the  sceptre,  and  during  the  remaining  thirty-nine 
years  played  for  the  public  no  more  except  at  a  few  charity 
concerts.  To  cite  his  own  words,  written  in  answer  to  a 
biographer's  question:  "Since  1847  I  have  not  earned  a 
penny  by  playing  the  piano,  teaching,  and  conducting. 
All  these  things,  on  the  contrary,  have  cost  me  time  and 
money." 

Among  the  motives  which  prompted  him  to  take  this 
astounding  step  the  principal  one  was  that,  having  achieved 
all  that  mortal  man  could  attain  in  piano  playing,  he 
wanted  to  devote  his  time  to  creative  work.  So  he  estab- 
lished himself  at  Weimar  and  composed  those  immortal 
symphonic  poems  which  revolutionized  musical  form. 
Luckily,  he  did  not  close  the  piano  altogether.  On  the 
contrary,  from  that  date  to  the  end  of  his  life  he  devoted 
much  of  his  time  to  teaching;  and  as  a  teacher  he  became 
what  he  had  been  as  pianist — the  greatest  the  world  has 
known.  Luckily,  he  had — unlike  poor  Chopin — many 
gifted  pupils,  including  most  of  the  great  pianists  who 
succeeded  him;  and  through  them  he  left  to  the  world  an 
invaluable  legacy  of  inspired  interpretation. 

The  first  vivid  glimpse  we  have  of  Liszt  as  a  teacher  we 
owe  to  Lenz.  As  a  youth  of  nineteen  he  went  to  Paris, 
intending  to  take  lessons  of  the  famous  Kalkbrenner.  He 
heard  his  favorite  pupil,  a  woman  who  "played  the  piano 
as  one  wears  an  elegant  shoe,  when  one  is  a  pretty  Pari- 
sienne."  Nevertheless,  he  started  to  call  on  Kalkbrenner, 
but  on  the  way  he  saw  a  poster  announcing  that  Liszt 
would  play  at  a  Conservatoire  entertainment,  a  concerto 
by  Beethoven  (then  seldom  played  in  public).  His  mind 
was  made  up  al  once.  He  would  go  to  Liszt  instead  of  to 
Kalkbrenner.  At  the  music  stores  they  told  him  that 
Liszt  gave  no  lessons;  but  he  called  on  him  nevertheless. 
He  found  him  a  pale,  haggard  young  man  with  imspeak- 


288  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

ably  attractive  features.  Reclining  on  a  sofa,  he  was 
smoking  a  long  Turkish  pipe,  apparently  lost  in  thought, 
and  for  a  time  he  took  no  notice  of  his  visitor.  Then  he 
played  a  practical  joke  on  Lenz,  telling  him  to  play  on  one 
of  the  three  pianos  in  the  room,  which  proved  to  have  so 
difficult  an  action  that  it  was  practically  an  impossible  in- 
strument. He  did  this,  as  he  explained,  because  Lenz  had 
offered  to  perform  for  him  Kalkbrenner's  sonata  for  the 
left  hand.  When  Lenz  began  to  play  Weber's  Invitation 
to  the  Dance,  Liszt,  to  whom  it  was  new,  became  intensely 
interested  at  once.  He  made  him  bring  other  piano  pieces 
by  Weber,  and  was  particularly  enchanted  by  the  A  flat 
major  sonata.  It  is  not  possible  to  cite  here  the  details 
given  by  Lenz  as  to  how  Liszt  went  over  this  sonata  with 
his  pupil;  every  student  should  read  them.  At  the  end, 
writes  Lenz:  ''So  young  and  so  wise!  I  said  to  myself;  I 
felt  disheartened  and  discouraged-  I  learned  more  from 
Liszt  in  the  first  four  measures  of  the  andante  of  that  sonata 
than  I  had  got  in  years  from  my  earlier  masters." 

Eight  years  later  (1836)  Liszt  taught  for  a  time,  without 
compensation,  at  the  newly  founded  Conservatory  in 
Geneva,  which,  thanks  to  him,  became  famous  at  once. 
But  it  was  not  till  1847,  when  he  gave  up  public  playing, 
that  his  great  career  as  a  teacher  began,  at  Weimar,  which 
soon  became  the  Mecca  of  all  piano  students. 

His  lessons  began  where  those  of  ordinary  teachers  end. 
They  were  lessons  in  accentuation,  in  phrasing,  in  inter- 
pretation, in  expression,  in  eloquence.  It  was  his  skill  in 
illuminating  music,  in  revealing  its  poetic  side,  that  made 
him  the  greatest  teacher  the  world  has  ever  known,  as  well 
as  the  king  of  pianists. 

Technic  he  took  for  granted  in  his  pupils.  To  those 
who  expected  help  in  that  direction  he  used  to  say  impa- 
tiently: "I  am  not  a  piano  teacher"  or  "I  am  not  a  pro- 
fessor of  music."     On  this  point  all  his  pupils  agree. 


LISZT  AND  HIS  PUPILS  289 

"Liszt  never  taught  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word," 
wrote  Dr.  William  Mason;  "during  the  entire  time  that 
I  was  with  him  I  did  not  see  him  give  a  regular  lesson  in 
the  pedagogical  sense."  And  Amy  Fay  attests:  "Liszt 
doesn't  tell  you  anything  about  the  technic.  That  you 
must  work  out  for  yourself." 

Dr.  Mason  relates  *  that  at  the  first  lesson  Liszt  urged 
him  to  put  more  enthusiasm  into  his  playing,  occasionally 
pushing  him  gently  off  the  chair  and  playing  a  phrase  or 
two  himself  by  way  of  illustration.  "He  gradually  got  me 
worked  up  to  such  a  pitch  of  enthusiasm  that  I  put  all  the 
grit  that  was  in  me  into  my  playing."  Once  he  said: 
"  Don't  play  it  that  way,  play  it  like  this,"  and  he  sat  down 
and  gave  the  same  phrase  with  an  accentuated,  elastic 
movement  which  let  in  a  flood  of  light.  "That  single  les- 
son eradicated  much  that  was  mechanical,  stilted,  and 
unmusical  in  my  playing,  and  developed  an  elasticity  of 
touch  which  has  lasted  all  my  life,  and  which  I  have  always 
tried  to  impart  to  my  pupils."  He  was  "very  fond  of 
strong  accents  in  order  to  mark  off  periods  and  phrases," 
yet  avoiding  exaggeration. 

By  far  the  best  and  most  vivid  account  of  Liszt's  indi- 
viduality as  a  teacher  is  that  given  by  Miss  Amy  Fay  ^ 
It  has  that  fascinating  personal  touch  based  on  minute 
observation  and  intense  sympathy  which  distinguishes  the 
writings  of  very  bright  women,  and  simply  must  be  read 
by  every  student  of  the  piano-forte  who  intends  to  play 
Liszt,  as  all  do  and  must;  it  evokes,  so  far  as  any  writing 
can  evoke,  a  feeling  akin  to  what  those  must  have  felt  who 

*  Memories  of  a  Musical  Life.  By  William  Mason.  New  York: 
Century  Co.     1901.    Another  book  which  every  student  should  read. 

t  Music-Study  in  Germany.  By  Amy  Fay.  New  York:  The  Mac- 
millan  Co.  This  book  gives  an  admirable  account  of  music  life  and 
teaching  in  Germany  in  1869-75.  It  was  translated  into  German  at 
Liszt's  request,  and  also  into  French.  The  original  has  passed  through 
more  than  twenty  editions  in  America  and  England. 


290  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

had  the  inestimable  privilege  of  being  admitted  to  the 
"afternoons"  (he  hated  the  word  Stunden — "hours,"  or 
lessons)  of  this  wonderful  man.  He  made  Miss  Fay  think 
of  "an  old-time  magician  more  than  anything,  and  I  felt 
that  with  a  touch  of  his  wand  he  could  transform  us  all." 
"  All  Weimar  adores  him,  and  people  say  that  women  still 
go  perfectly  crazy  over  him.  When  he  walks  out  he  bows 
to  everybody,  just  like  a  king!"  "Liszt  is  just  like  a  mon- 
arch, and  no  one  dares  speak  to  him  until  he  addresses  you 
first."  "He  says  'people  fly  in  his  face  by  dozens'  and 
seem  to  think  he  is  'only  there  to  give  lessons.'  He  gives 
no  paid  lessons  whatever,  as  he  is  much  too  grand  for  that, 
but  if  one  has  talent  enough,  or  pleases  him,  he  lets  one 
come  to  him  and  play  to  him." 

''  "Never  was  there  such  a  delightful  teacher!  And  he  is 
the  first  sympathetic  one  I've  had.  You  feel  so  free  with 
him,  and  he  develops  the  very  spirit  of  music  in  you.  He 
doesn't  keep  nagging  at  you  all  the  time,  but  he  leaves  you 
your  own  conception.  Now  and  then  he  will  make  a  criti- 
cism, or  play  a  passage,  and  with  a  few  words  give  you 
enough  to  think  of  all  the  rest  of  your  life."  "Oh,  he  is  a 
perfect  wizard!  It  is  as  interesting  to  see  him  as  it  is  to 
hear  him,  for  his  face  changes  with  every  modulation  of  the 
piece,  and  he  looks  exactly  as  he  is  playing." 

"He  says  it  is  an  art  to  turn  the  leaves  properly."  Once 
he  made  her  turn  them  for  him.  "  Gracious!  How  he  does 
read !  It  is  very  difficult  to  turn  for  him,  for  he  reads  ever 
so  far  ahead  of  what  he  is  playing,  and  takes  in  fully  five 
bars  at  a  glance,  so  you  have  to  guess  about  where  you 
think  he  would  like  to  have  the  page  over."  * 

*  His  reading  ahead  so  far  doubtless  had  much  to  do  with  his  astound- 
ing skill  in  playing  everything,  including  orchestral  scores,  at  sight.  In 
my  Wagner  and  His  Works  (Vol.  II,  p.  190)  I  have  cited  the  remarks  of 
Pohl,  who  found  Liszt  playing  at  sight,  from  the  MS.,  the  orchestral 
score  of  Die  Meister singer,  just  completed  by  Wagner.  Saint-Saens  once 
did  the  same  thing  with  the  Siegfried  score  in  MS. 


LISZT  AND  HIS  PUPILS  291 

One  day  he  played  his  Au  Bord  d^une  Source.  *'The 
notes  just  seemed  to  ripple  off  his  fingers'  ends  with 
scarce  any  perceptible  motion.  As  he  neared  the  close 
I  remarked  that  that  funny  little  expression  came  over  his 
face  which  he  always  has  when  he  means  to  surprise  you, 
and  he  suddenly  took  an  unexpected  chord  and  extem- 
porized a  poetical  little  end,  quite  different  from  the 
written.  Do  you  wonder  that  people  go  distracted  over 
him?" 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  Liszt  was  infallible  in  his 
technic  like  his  pupil  Tausig.  "It  is  certain,"  writes 
Breithaupt,  ''that  Liszt,  as  Robert  Schumann  reports, 
often  arrived  in  a  town  tired  and  battered  from  a  journey 
by  stage,  and  went  directly  from  it  to  the  concert  hall.  It 
is  also  undeniable  that  he  often  behaved  in  a  very  arbi- 
trary way,  and  was  dependent  as  no  one  else  was  on 
moods  and  caprices.  An  old  contemporary  .  .  .  related 
to  me  that  he  had  often  heard  Liszt  play  wrong  notes  and 
that  he  was  quite  ready  on  occasion  to  throw  a  whole 
handful  of  notes  under  the  key-board.  Even  wrong  basses 
and  incorrect  chords  in  the  left  hand  were  not  unusual." 
On  this  point  Miss  Fay  says:  ''Liszt  sometimes  strikes 
wrong  notes  when  he  plays,  but  it  does  not  trouble  him  in 
the  least.  On  the  contrary,  he  rather  enjoys  it.  .  .  .  It 
always  amuses  him  when  he  comes  down  squarely  wrong, 
as  it  affords  him  an  opportunity  of  displaying  his  ingenuity 
and  giving  things  such  a  turn  that  the  false  note  will  ap- 
pear simply  a  key  leading  to  new  and  unexpected  beauties" ; 
and  she  gives  the  amusing  details  of  an  accident  of  that 
kind  (p.  243).* 

Liszt  taught  his  pupils  the  secrets  of  musical  rhetoric, 
the  science  of  eloquence.     Among  living  pianists,  Pader- 

*  See  also  pp.  242  and  223  for  illustrations  of  his  graphic  way  of  teach- 
ing his  pupils  to  "throw  chords  out  of  the  window,"  and  to  play  "for  the 
people  in  the  gallery,"  with  a  tone  "  not  loud  but  penetrating  and  far- 
reaching." 


292 


SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 


ewski  is  almost  the  only  one  who  fully  realizes  the  value 
of  the  rhetorical  pause — a  thing  unknown  to  the  foolish 
"sewing-machine  players."  Once  Fraulein  Gaul  played 
for  Liszt  a  piece  in  which  there  were  two  runs  and  after 
each  run  two  staccato  chords.  She  played  the  runs  finely 
but  struck  the  chords  immediately  after  them.  **No, 
no!"  cried  Liszt.  "After  you  make  a  run  you  must  wait 
a  minute  before  you  strike  the  chords,  as  if  in  admiration 
of  your  own  performance.  You  must  pause ,  as  if  to  say, 
*How  nicely  I  did  that!'"  And  he  illustrated  the  point  at 
the  piano.  "That,"  says  Miss  Fay,  "is  the  way  he  plays 
everything.  It  seems  as  if  the  piano  were  speaking  with 
a  human  tongue." 

We  must  content  ourselves  with  one  more  citation  from 
this  illuminating  book:  "Perhaps,  after  all,  the  secret  of 
Liszt's  fascination  is  this  power  of  intense  and  wild  emo- 
tion that  you  feel  he  possesses,  together  with  the  most  per- 
fect control  over  it."  But  we  may  be  permitted  to  quote 
one  more  of  her  suggestive  hints,  from  a  magazine  article: 
"Under  the  inspiration  of  Liszt's  playing  everybody 
worked  Hooth  and  nail'  to  achieve  the  impossible.  A 
smile  of  approbation  from  him  was  all  we  cared  for.  This 
is  how  it  is  that  he  turned  out  such  a  grand  school  of  piano 
playing." 

In  everything  relating  to  art  the  student  may  safely  take 
Liszt  as  a  model.  On  this  point  one  of  his  most  famous 
pupils,  Eugene  D' Albert,  once  wrote  in  the  Neue  Rund- 
schau: 

The  acquisition  of  technical  facility  is  an  easy  matter 
for  any  one  that  has  industry  and  patience,  but  the  mag- 
netic fluid  that  establishes  the  contact  between  the  artist 
and  his  public  can  only  proceed  from  the  soul  of  the  bom 
artist,  and  cannot  be  acquired.  The  teacher  can  awaken 
this  divine  spark,  and  fan  it  to  brightest  flame  if  he  has  the 
fine  gift  of  the  born  teacher.    Undoubtedly,  very  few  pos- 


LISZT  AND  HIS  PUPILS  293 

sess  it,  and  none  in  the  same  measure  as  Franz  Liszt,  the 
great  artist  of  the  soul.  Therefore,  both  teacher  and  taught 
should  turn  more  and  more  to  this  mighty  teacher  as  a 
model — the  teacher  by  seeking  to  influence  the  soul-life  of 
the  pupil  and  guide  him  into  the  right  paths,  not  by  crush- 
ing it  with  an  excess  of  dry,  unnecessary  pedagogics  that 
clip  the  wings  of  his  genius;  the  pupil  by  taking  as  his  model 
the  unselfishness  of  Liszt's  life  and  his  ideal  conception  of 
art.  Let  him  keep  himself  free  from  all  pettiness,  narrow- 
ness of  mind,  and  prosaic  living.  Let  him  not  Hmit  his 
knowledge  to  the  piano.  Let  him  mature  himself,  gather 
experience,  take  an  interest  in  everything,  in  the  fine  arts 
and  in  literature. 

Liszt,  as  already  intimated,  was  much  more  fortunate 
in  his  pupils  than  Chopin.  Among  those  who  became 
famous  were  Rubinstein,  Hans  von  Biilow,  Tausig,  Joseffy, 
Cornelius,  D' Albert,  MacDowell,  William  Mason,  Anna 
Mehlig,  Amy  Fay,  Viardot- Garcia,  Ansorge,  Walter 
Bache,  Arthur  Bird,  Louis  Brassin,  Bronsart,  Burmeister, 
L.  Damrosch,  Draseke,  Kienzl,  Kohler,  Lachmund,  Less- 
mann,  Liebling,  Motta-Vianna,  Nikisch,  Pinner,  Pohlig, 
Pruckner,  Raff,  Reisenauer,  Remenyi,  Rimsky-Korsa- 
koff,  Rosenthal,  Saint-Saens,  Seroff,  Servais,  Sgambati, 
Sherwood,  Siloti,  Smetana,  Stavenhagen,  Van  der  Stucken, 
Weingartner,  and  about  four  hundred  others.*  But  it 
was  not  only  in  Weimar  that  he  gave  his  valuable 
time  to  students.  His  house  was  open  to  aspiring  musi- 
cians at  Rome,  where  he  spent  part  of  every  year;  and 
in  the  later  years  of  his  life,  when  he  would  have  greatly 
preferred  to  remain  at  his  quiet  retreat  near  Rome,  com- 
posing, he  allowed  himself  to  be  persuaded  to  spend  several 

*  GoUerich's  little  book  on  Liszt  (Reclam  edition)  contains  a  list  of 
Liszt's  pupils  who  are  worth  naming.  Albert  Morris  Bagb}''s  Miss 
Trdumerei  gives  an  interesting  picture,  in  the  form  of  fiction,  of  Liszt  and 
his  Weimar  pupils.  Constance  Bache's  Brother  Musicians  illustrates 
his  kindness  to  pupils  in  Rome  and  other  traits. 


294  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

months  every  year  in  his  native  country,  at  Pesth,  giving 
four  lessons  a  week  at  the  National  Academy  of  Music. 

The  plain  truth  is  that  Liszt  was  too  kind,  too  prodigal 
of  his  valuable  time,  wasting  much  of  it  on  unworthy  pu- 
pils. An  amusing  story  is  told  of  how,  more  than  once, 
Hans  von  Biilow  came  to  the  rescue  at  Weimar,  taking  his 
master's  place  for  a  time.  On  one  of  these  occasions  there 
were  about  forty  pupils;  three  days  later  only  dive  were 
left!  One  of  these  told  Franz  Friedberg  what  nad  hap- 
pened. Billow  began  with  a  speech:  '* Ladies  and  gentle- 
men, do  not  forget  that  the  master  is  the  incarnation  of 
kindness  and  forbearance,  and  do  not  abuse  him  in  such 
an  outrageous  manner.  You,  in  particular,  young  ladies 
— believe  me,  most  of  you  are  predestined  to  wear  the 
bridal  veil  rather  than  the  laurels  of  an  artist."  But  when 
Liszt  returned,  the  ''open-door  policy"  prevailed  again, 
and  soon  the  class  was  as  large  as  before. 


XVII 
/hints  by  HANS  VON  BULOW 

Better  than  any  other  of  Liszt's  pupils,  Hans  von 
Billow  was  qualified  to  take  his  place  in  the  class-room. 
No  musician  ever  had  such  enviable  educational  oppor- 
tunities. At  the  age  of  twenty  he  went  to  Zurich,  fired  with 
enthusiasm  for  the  music  of  Wagner,  who  reciprocated  by 
teaching  him  the  art  of  orchestral  conducting.  After  re- 
maining a  year  and  exercising  his  new  art  at  Zurich  and 
St.  Gallen,  he  went  to  Weimar,  with  a  letter  of  recom- 
mendation from  Wagner.  Liszt  received  him  most  cor- 
dially and  gave  him  lessons  for  four  years.  Thus  it  came 
about  that  Biilow,  being  a  man  of  exceptional  receptivity, 
memory,  and  ability,  became  the  embodiment  and  the 
apostle  of  both  these  great  reformers.  By  nature  and  in- 
stinct he  was  really  a  conservative,  and  had  he  not  come 
under  the  influence  of  Wagner  and  Liszt  he  might  have 
become  a  pedant.  Luckily  he  did  come  under  their  influ- 
ence, and  the  result  was  a  happy  blend  of  classical  and 
modern  principles  which  made  him  an  ideal  teacher. 

Liszt  once  said  of  him:  "Biilow  is  a  school-master,  but 
of  aristocratic  rank"  (ein  vornehmer). 

As  a  pianist  he  was  strictly  an  interpreter,  without  even 
that  slight  trace  of  virtuosity  which  clung  to  Liszt  in  spite 
of  himself.  Unfortunately  he  lacked  also  the  impetuous, 
emotional,  temperamental  qualities  which  were  the  magic 
wand  in  the  hands  of  Liszt  and  Rubinstein.  But  in  intel- 
lectual subtlety  of  interpretation  he  had  no  superior,  and 

295 


296  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

for  this  reason  he  was  at  his  best  in  the  sonatas  of  Beetho- 
ven, the  last  five  of  which  he  was  wont  to  play  at  a  single 
recital.  The  comments  he  wrote  for  his  edition  of  Bee- 
thoven*s  sonatas  (which  he  called  the  New  Testament  in 
music,  Bach's  Well-Tempered  Clavichord  being  the  Old 
Testament)  opened  entirely  new  vistas  in  the  esthetics  of 
interpretation,  and  made  him  the  originator  of  a  new 
branch  of  literature  devoted  to  questions  of  phrasing  and 
expression  in  general.  "How  far  Biilow,  in  his  attempt 
to  analyze  the  structure  of  musical  sentences  {Periodenhau) 
down  to  the  minutest  details,  applied  the  teachings  of 
Liszt,  or  aper$:us  by  him,  or  abstracted  them  from  the  way 
in  which  that  adored  master  played,  we  can  no  longer 
ascertain,"  writes  Professor  Riemann;  "but  it  is  quite 
certain  that  Bulow  acted  in  this  matter  imder  the  direct 
influence  of  Liszt." 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  aspect  of  Billow's  intellect 
was  his  memory.  To  Adele  Hippius  he  once  said:  "I  had 
promised  a  friend  to  play  a  composition  of  his  at  my  next 
concert  and  had  not  found  time  to  play  it  over  even  once. 
I  took  the  piece  along  on  my  trip,  studied  it  in  the  coach, 
and  in  the  evening  played  it  at  the  concert.  This  method 
of  studying,  first  with  the  head  and  then  with  the  fingers, 
I  cordially  commend  to  every  musician." 

On  his  second  American  tour  he  played  by  memory  all 
of  Beethoven's  compositions  for  piano-forte  solo  on  sixteen 
consecutive  evenings.  During  his  first  year  in  America, 
though  not  at  all  robust  and  of  a  highly  nervous  disposi- 
tion, he  stood  the  ordeal  of  giving  139  concerts  without 
ever  looking  at  a  printed  page. 

Young  pianists  who  feel  discouraged  because  they  do 
not  at  once  meet  with  the  success  they  deserve — or  think 
they  deserve — should  read  the  first  volume  of  Bulow's  let- 
ters, in  which  the  hardships  and  disappointments  of  his 
early  years  are  vividly  described. 


HINTS  BY  HANS  VON  BULOW  297 

From  what  was  said  a  moment  ago  regarding  the  intel- 
lectuality of  Billow's  playing,  it  must  not  be  supposed  that 
he  had  no  appreciation  of  romance  and  "atmosphere." 
Once  he  played  the  so-called  Moonlight  Sonata  in  Boston 
Music  Hall  with  all  the  gas  turned  down  to  a  bead.  "  At 
first,"  Mr.  Apthorp  writes,  "it  seemed  rather  a  cheap  de- 
vice, unworthy  of  both  sonata  and  pianist;  but  it  was  suf- 
ficiently known  that  Von  Billow's  reputation  as  a  musician 
was  untainted  by  even  a  suspicion  of  charlatanism,  and 
most  of  us  were  quite  willing  to  humor  him  in  his  whim. 
I  think  that,  before  long,  we  found  in  our  heart  of  hearts 
that  the  half-darkness  was  really  an  admirable  cadre  for 
the  composition — notably  for  the  last  movement." 

His  sympathies  for  the  composers  of  the  romantic  school 
were  manifested  not  only  by  the  place  he  gave  them  in  his 
programmes  (though  the  "Three  B's" — Bach,  Beethoven, 
and  Brahms — were  his  favorites)  but  by  many  pages  in  his 
essays  and  letters.  To  cite  only  two.  To  a  friend  he 
wrote: 

I  look  forward  eagerly  to  your  Chopin,  that  immortal 
romanticist  par  excellence,  whose  mazurkas  alone  are  a 
monument  more  enduring  than  metal.  Never  will  this 
great,  deep,  sincere,  and  at  the  same  time  tender  and 
passionate  poet  become  antiquated.  On  the  contrary,  as 
musical  culture  increases,  he  will  appear  in  a  much  brighter 
light  than  to-day,  when  only  the  popular,  the  damoiseau 
Chopin  is  in  vogue,  whereas  the  more  aristocratic,  manly 
Chopin,  the  poet  of  the  last  two  scherzi,  the  last  two  bal- 
lads, the  barcarole,  the  polonaise-fantaisie,  the  nocturnes. 
Op.  9,  No.  3;  Op.  48;  Op.  55,  No.  2,  etc.,  still  awaits  the 
interpreters  who  have  entered  into  his  spirit  and  among 
whom,  if  God  grants  me  life,  I  should  like  to  have  the  pride 
of  counting  myself. 

He  often  gave  entire  Liszt  recitals  by  way  of  exhibiting 
his  admiration  for  that  master.    In  one  of  his  essays  he 


298  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

indignantly  attacks  the  current  notion  that  Liszt's  pieces 
are  all  unplayable  except  by  concert  pianists:  "Some  day 
I  shall  make  a  list  of  all  of  Liszt's  pieces  for  piano  which 
most  amateurs  will  find  much  easier  to  master  and  digest 
than  the  chaff  of  Thalberg  or  the  wheat  of  Henselt  or 
Chopin.  But  it  seems  that  the  name  of  Liszt  as  composer 
for  piano  has  become  associated  inseparably  with  the 
words  ' inexecutable '  and  'making  colossal  demands.'  It 
is  a  harmless  prejudice  of  the  ignorant,  like  many  others, 
but  for  all  that  none  the  less  objectionable." 

In  the  playing  of  Brahms,  as  of  other  masters,  he  strongly 
disapproved  of  "that  tiresome  correctness  (literal  jss) 
which  some  call  the  classical  style."  "We  must  punctu- 
ate, phrase,  divide;  we  must  speak  the  piano,  not  babble 
it."  Nor  did  he  approve  of  the  dry  academic  way  of  play- 
ing Mozart.    To  a  pupil  he  said: 

Mozart  was  not  in  vain  half  Italian.  You  play  him  as 
if  he  had  been  born  in  Stockholm  instead  of  in  Salzburg. 
That  is  too  frosty.  The  tone  is  too  thin,  too  childish. 
Study  his  operas,  or  play  his  violin  sonatas  with  a  violinist. 
There  is  always  in  Mozart  a  dramatic  trait — even  in  his 
piano  sonatas.    Every  Mozart  theme  is  an  individuality. 

To  another  pupil  he  said  that  Bach's  prelude  in  E  flat 
major  "must  be  played  like  a  Chopin  nocturne.  Above 
all  things,  do  not  think  that  a  monotonous,  tiresome  cor- 
rectness in  playing  Bach's  pieces  is  classical.  Bach,  like 
all  other  masters,  must  be  played  correctly  first,  then 
beautifully,  then  interestingly.  You  did  not  consider  this 
piece  difficult  enough,  Miss,  because  it  did  not  look  black 
enough." 

In  that  last  sentence  lies  a  whole  treatise  on  the  philos- 
ophy of  music.  Most  players  do  not  realize  that  it  takes 
infinitely  more  musicianship  to  play  a  simple,  slow  pre- 


HINTS  BY  HANS  VON  BULOW         299 

lude  or  nocturne  with  the  required  soulfulness  than  it  does 
^o  rattle  off  a  brilliant  dtude  a  la  sewing-machine. 

"There  are  no  easy  pieces;  all  are  difficult,"  said  Biilow. 
"I  will  show  you  how  the  difficulties  of  the  easiest  pieces 
can  be  recognized  and  overcome." 

Many  invaluable  hints  to  students  were  given  by  him  at 
his  lessons  and  in  his  essays  and  letters.  Words  of  wisdom 
fell  from  his  lips,  particularly  when  he  was  speaking  of 
Bach.    Here  are  a  few  samples: 

I  play — that  is,  practise — daily  seven  hours,  the  first  of 
which  is  invariably  devoted  to  the  Well-tempered  Clavi- 
chord. 

[Regarding  the  performance  of  a  Bach  prelude,  he  said 
to  a  pupil:]  Do  not  accent  regularly  the  first  and  third  beat, 
but  accent  the  changes  in  the  harmony. 

Accents  must  not  be  used  to  excess",  else  they  lose  their 
effect.    If  we  underscore  every  word  we  emphasize  none. 

Make  pauses  for  breathing. 

,  At  the  close  of  a  Bach  prelude  we  must  retard  only  when 
there  is  an  accumulation  of  harmonies.  If  we  retard  at  the 
close  of  every  Bach  piece  we  commit  a  nuisance.  Old 
organists  do  this,  at  the  same  time  looking  over  their  spec- 
tacles shrewdly. 

Do  not  play  too  fast.  You  must  bring  out  the  harmonic 
and  melodic  beauties,  and  you  cannot  do  that  if  you  treat 
the  piano  like  a  sewing-machine. 

Always  play  Bach's  pieces  first  without  their  ornaments. 

You  must  study  Bach's  cantatas;  his  declamation  is 
wonderful;  he  blended  word  with  tone  as  no  one  after  him 
did  except  Wagner. 

You  must  learn  to  know  Bach  as  a  writer  for  the  voice 
in  order  to  appreciate  his  instrumental  works  and  to  play 
them  correctly  on  the  piano.  Bach  is  above  all  things  a 
melodist. 

Just  as  there  used  to  be  in  Florence  and  at  other  Italian 
universities  a  special  Dante  faculty,  whose  members  con- 


300  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

fined  their  philological  activity  exclusively  to  the  riddles  of 
that  mighty  sphinx,  so  there  should  be  at  high  schools  of 
music  a  similar  specialization  for  the  study  of  the  German 
tone-giant,  Bach. 


Billow's  malicious  sarcasm  is  exemplified  in  the  fol- 
lowing: 

"  Piano  playing  is  a  difficult  art.  First  we  have  to  learn 
how  to  equalize  the  fingers,  and  then  (in  polyphonic  music, 
where  one  hand  has  to  play  at  the  same  time  parts  of  di- 
verse strength)  to  make  them  unequal  again.  That  being 
the  case,  it  seems  best  not  to  practise  the  piano  at  all — and 
that  is  the  advice  I  have  given  to  many." 

A  few  more  general  hints; 

"  Crescendo  means  piano.  You  must  not  begin  by  being 
at  once  what  you  are  to  become  gradually. '* 

"An  interpreter  should  be  the  opposite  of  a  grave- 
digger;  he  should  bring  to  light  what  is  hidden  and 
buried." 

With  reference  to  the  first  Brahms  Ballade:  "To  find 
the  correct  declamation,"  said  Bulow,  "we  should  sing  the 
melody."    He  often  did  this  for  his  pupils. 

Concerning  Chopin's  mazurka.  Op.  50,  No.  i,  he  said: 
"  In  this  mazurka  there  is  dancing,  singing,  gesticulating." 

"  If  you  think  you  have  finished  studying  a  piece,  put  it 
away  a  month.  On  resuming  it,  you  will  discover  new 
difficulties  to  conquer." 

"The  bar-line  is  only  for  the  eye.  In  playing,  as  in 
reading  a  poem,  the  scanning  must  be  subordinated  to  the 
declamation;  you  must  speak  the  piano. ''^ 

A  pupil  who  was  mechanically  playing  a  Beethoven 
sonata  one  day  was  interrupted  by  him  with  the  word: 
"Please  play  a  little  with  your  head,  won't  you?" 

"Repose  is  the  pianist's  first  duty." 

"  On  the  whole  I  am  not  in  favor  of  playing  Beethoven's 


HINTS  BY  HANS  VON  BULOW  301 

last  sonatas,  for  the  simple  reason  that  most  people  do  not 
understand  them.  This  is  the  courtesy  I  owe  to  the  mul- 
titude." 

One  of  his  favorite  and  most  effective  methods  of  teach- 
ing was  to  caricature  the  pupil's  faults,  exaggerating  them 
in  such  a  way  that  their  absurdity  stood  out  glaringly. 

He  touched  on  a  matter  of  tremendous  importance  when 
he  instructed  his  pupils  to  emphasize  the  changes  in  the 
harmony  instead  of  accenting  always  on  the  first  beat. 
When  a  pianist  gets  that  big  idea  in  his  head  he  is  in  a 
fair  way  of  understanding  the  difference  between  the  inter- 
pretation  of  a  composition  and  the  mere  mechanical  play- 
ing of  it  as  if  it  were  a  piece  of  ordinary  dance  music* 

*  Some  of  the  foregoing  hints  are  taken  from  Billow's  letters  and  the 
volume  of  his  Ausgewahlte  Schriften,  to  which  is  appended  a  section  of 
selected  maxims  and  epigrams  similar  to  Schumann's  invaluable  Musi- 
kalische  Haus-und  Lebensregeln;  for  others  I  am  indebted  to  a  book  which 
should  be  in  every  student's  library:  Studien  hei  Hans  von  Biilow,  by 
Theodor  Pfeiffer  and  Vianna  da  Motta,  who  had  the  happy  thought  of 
jotting  down  some  of  the  best  things  Biilow  said  to  them  and  others  in 
the  class-room. 


XVIII 
RUBINSTEIN  THE  LEONINE 

Anton  Rubinstein,  whom  musicians  have  generally 
agreed  to  place  next  to  Liszt,  as  second  in  rank  among 
pianists,  used  to  say  that  the  Russians  called  him  a  Ger- 
man and  the  Germans  a  Russian.  In  truth  he  was  both, 
for  while  his  father  was  a  Russian  Jew  (who  had  gone 
over  to  the  Orthodox  Church),  his  mother,  a  Lowenstein 
by  birth,  was  a  native  of  Prussian  Silesia.  Musically,  the 
German  predominated  in  him,  so  far  as  his  compositions 
are  concerned,  his  chief  models  being  Beethoven,  Mendels- 
sohn, and  Schumann.  As  a  pianist  he  displayed  a  trucu- 
lence,  an  indomitable  energy  and  emotional  impetuosity 
which  may  be  called  Russian;  they  are  the  qualities  we 
find  in  the  greatest  Russian  composer,  Tchaikovsky,  and 
the  greatest  Russian  conductor,  Safonoff.  This  intense 
emotionality  was  the  main  secret  of  his  success.  It  im- 
pelled him,  at  the  same  time,  to  occasional  exaggerations 
which  evoked  censure.  Like  a  Cossack  cavalryman  he 
sometimes  ran  away  with  the  tempo.  "  Rubinstein  knows 
no  allegro  but  only  presto  and  prestissimo,"  wrote  Hans- 
lick;  "whenever  he  begins  an  allegro  the  demon  of  ner- 
vousness (or  is  it  virtuosity?)  seizes  him  and  impels  him 
to  play  as  fast  as  the  hands  of  man  can  do  it."  Yet  the 
same  critic  was  overwhelmed  by  the  fiery,  masculine  char- 
acter of  his  playing,  and  at  the  same  time  he  declared  "  it 
was  always  the  tender,  simple  pieces  that  he  played  best." 
In  a  word,  Rubinstein  united  in  his  art  the  masculine  and 

30a 


RUBINSTEIN  THE  LEONINE  303 

feminine  elements,  as  all  the  successful  pianists  have  done. 
Chopin  was — as  a  player — weak  on  the  masculine  side, 
hence  he  did  not  succeed  as  a  concert  pianist.  In  all  of 
which  there  is  much  food  for  thought. 

Rubinstein's  father  started  a  pen  and  pencil  factory, 
which  was  not  very  profitable.  His  mother  gave  him  his 
first  lesson  when  he  was  between  five  and  six  years  old. 
When  he  had  learned  all  she  knew,  she  placed  him  in 
charge  of  a  Moscow  teacher  named  Villoing,  who  willingly 
undertook  his  musical  education  free  of  charge.  "And 
with  him,"  says  Rubinstein  in  his  autobiography,  "my  les- 
sons began  and  ended,  for  no  other  teacher  did  I  have. 
In  my  eighth  year  I  began  to  study  with  Villoing,  and  in 
my  thirteenth  my  musical  education  was  completed,  and 
I  had  no  other  teacher."  We  saw  in  preceding  pages  that 
Liszt  and  Chopin  also  had  reached  the  end  of  their  piano 
lessons  with  their  thirteenth  year.  If  you  are  a  Liszt,  a 
Chopin,  or  a  Rubinstein,  go  and  do  likewise;  but  not 
otherwise! 

In  1839,  when  Rubinstein  was  ten  years  old,  he  gave  his 
first  public  concert,  playing  an  allegro  from  a  Hummel 
concerto,  an  andante  by  Thalberg,  and  four  pieces  bj 
Field,  Liszt,  and  Henselt.  Then  for  three  years  he  trav- 
elled with  his  teacher  all  over  Europe.  At  this  time  he 
appeared  on  the  concert  platform  with  no  thought  of  shy- 
ness, looking  at  his  playing  in  the  light  of  a  plaything.  In 
1840  he  tried  to  get  admission  to  the  Paris  Conservatory 
but  was,  like  Liszt,  refused;  why,  he  did  not  know.  Per- 
haps his  teacher  did  not  really  want  to  part  with  him; 
perhaps  he  was  considered  too  young  or  too  far  advanced; 
perhaps  he  was  ignored  as  being  simply  one  of  a  host  of 
infant  prodigies  by  whom  Europe  was  at  that  time  over- 
run and  who  were  not  favored  at  the  Conservatoire. 

At  one  of  his  Paris  concerts  both  Chopin  and  Liszt  were 
present.    He  also  played  privately  for  these  masters,  who 


304  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

predicted  a  brilliant  career  for  him.  He  tells  us  that  in 
Paris  he  often  heard  Liszt  and  was  "deeply  impressed  by 
his  playing."  "At  that  time  I  was  a  devoted  imitator  of 
Liszt,  of  his  manners  and  movements,  his  trick  of  tossing 
back  his  hair,  his  way  of  holding  his  hands,  of  all  the  pe- 
culiar movements  of  his  playing." 

Liszt  advised  Villoing  to  take  his  pupil  to  Germany  for 
further  education.  We  find  him  in  Berlin  in  1844,  with 
his  mother,  who  sought  counsel  of  Mendelssohn  and 
Meyerbeer.  Two  years  later  he  resided  in  Vienna,  trying 
to  earn  his  living  by  teaching.  He  met  Liszt  again,  who 
bade  him  remember  that  a  talented  man  must  win  the 
goal  of  ambition  by  his  own  unassisted  efforts.  He  often 
had  not  enough  money  to  pay  for  meals,  and  had  to  go 
hungry. 

After  a  year  and  a  half  he  returned  to  Berlin  to  play  and 
teach,  leading  "the  Bohemian  life  of  an  artist — feasting 
when  money  was  plenty,  and  going  hungry  when  it  was 
gone."  At  one  time  he  thought  of  going  to  America  to 
try  his  fortunes;  but  friends  dissuaded  him.  In  the  revo- 
lutionary year  1848  he  returned  to  Russia,  where  he  gave 
successful  concerts.  In  St.  Petersburg  he  was  appointed 
court  pianist  and  concert  director;  in  1862  he  founded  the 
Conservatory  at  St.  Petersburg  and  for  some  years  taught 
in  it.  The  organizing  and  conducting  of  this  institution 
was  one  of  the  great  tasks  of  his  life. 

On  his  brilliantly  successful  concert  tours  in  Europe  we 
need  not  dwell.  Many  of  them  were  given  for  charity;  in 
twenty-eight  years  he  gave  more  than  300,000  rubles  to  the 
poor,  and  to  other  good  works.  The  foundation  of  his  pros- 
perity was  laid  in  America.  In  1872  he  and  Wieniawski 
began  a  tour  in  the  United  States  during  which  they  gave 
215  concerts,  playing  often  two  or  three  times  in  one  day. 
America  gave  him  the  opportunity  to  devote  most  of  his 
time,  on  his  return  to  Russia,  to  composing.    But  the 


RUBINSTEIN  THE  LEONINE  305 

tour  had  been,  he  writes,  "so  tedious  that  I  began  to 
despise  myself  and  my  art.  So  profound  was  my  dissatis- 
faction that  when,  several  years  later,  I  was  asked  to  repeat 
my  American  tour  with  half  a  million  [francs]  guaranteed 
to  me,  I  refused  point-blank." 

"In  America,'*  he  writes  on  another  page,  "we  find  a 
little  more  music  than  in  England.  .  .  .  But  it  is  only  in 
Germany  that  one  learns  to  what  noble  heights  it  may 
attain." 

While  Rubinstein's  style  of  playing  was  so  unlike  Von 
Billow's,  there  were  things  they  had  in  common,  notably 
a  genuine  respect  for  art,  bitter  hatred  of  charlatan  meth- 
ods, and  a  prodigious  memory.  Rubinstein's  memory, 
however,  became  unreliable  after  his  fiftieth  year.  At  the 
age  of  sixty  he  said  on  this  point:  "  Since  then  I  have  been 
conscious  of  a  growing  weakness.  I  begin  to  feel  an  un- 
certainty; something  like  a  nervous  dread  often  takes 
possession  of  me  while  I  am  on  the  stage  in  the  presence 
of  a  large  audience.  .  .  .  One  can  hardly  imagine  how 
painful  this  sensation  may  be.  .  .  .  This  sense  of  uncer- 
tainty has  often  inflicted  upon  me  tortures  only  to  be  com- 
pared with  those  of  the  Inquisition,  while  the  public  listen- 
ing to  me  imagines  that  I  am  perfectly  calm." 

His  memory  served  him  faithfully,  however,  in  1885-6 
when  he  carried  out  a  long-cherished  plan  of  giving  a 
series  of  concerts  to  illustrate  the  gradual  development  of 
piano  music.  Seven  of  these  historic  concerts  were  given 
by  him  in  seven  cities:  St.  Petersburg,  Moscow,  Vienna, 
Berlin,  London,  Paris,  and  Leipsic,  and  in  some  of  these 
cities  every  concert  that  he  gave  in  the  evening  was  re- 
peated the  next  day,  free,  for  the  benefit  of  students  of 
music.  Both  morning  and  evening  concerts  were  crowded. 
The  first  recital  covered  two  centuries,  from  Bird  to  Mo- 
zart. Beethoven  had  a  whole  programme,  while  Chopin 
had  not  only  a  whole  recital  to  himself  but  spilled  over  into 


3o6  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

the  next  with  eleven  more  pieces.  It  was  Rubinstein's 
pessimistic  opinion  that  composition  came  to  an  end  with 
Chopin.  Brahms  he  utterly  ignored  in  this  series;  he 
frankly  confessed  he  did  not  like  his  music.  It  is  note- 
worthy, on  the  other  hand,  that  while  he  also  professed  not 
to  like  the  pieces  of  Liszt,  he  included  no  fewer  than  nine 
of  them  in  his  historic  recitals.  The  modem  Russians 
were  abundantly  represented;  also,  of  course,  among  the 
great  ones,  Schubert,  as  well  as  Schumann,  Mendelssohn, 
and  Weber.* 

Rubinstein's  touch  was  perhaps  more  remarkable  even 
than  Liszt's.  "He  seemed  to  caress  the  sounds  from  the 
instrument  where  others  struck  them,"  writes  "Alexander" 
TMc Arthur.  Being  asked  if  this  tone  and  touch  of  his  was 
natural,  he  replied:  "Partly  natural,  partly  acquired. 
I  have  spent  thousands  of  hours  in  an  endeavor  to  find 
this  tone  and  that,  and  since  I  can  remember  I  have  been 
working  at  the  problem."  Sometimes  she  saw  him  in  a 
rage  with  a  pupil  who  had  studied  only  the  notes  of  a  piece, 
neglecting  the  tone-colors.  He  often  said  to  his  pupils: 
"Listen,  attentively,  when  you  can,  to  good  singing,  and 
endeavor  to  sing  on  the  piano.  Do  not  think  of  striking 
your  notes;  think  of  singing  them."  And  Miss  Mc Arthur 
adds  a  psychological  hint  of  extreme  importance  to  the 
student:  "Personally  I  found,  when  first  I  attended  his 
lessons,  that  it  was  more  by  willing  the  tone  than  by  hitting 

♦  A  detailed  account  of  these  historic  recitals  may  be  found  in  Hans- 
lick's  Aus  dem  Tagebuche  eines  Musikers,  pp.  189-198.  The  English 
version  of  Rubinstein's  Autobiography,  by  Aline  Delano,  is  published  by 
Little,  Brown  &  Co.,  Boston.  "Alexander"  McArthur  (now  Mrs. 
Nicchia)  has  written  a  short  life  of  Rubinstein  and  intends  to  write  a 
longer  one.  Her  excellent  collection  of  hints  to  students,  entitled 
Pianoforte  Study  (Philadelphia:  Theodore  Presser),  contains  valuable 
references  to  Rubinstein,  some  of  which  are  quoted  here.  The  student 
should  also  read  Rubinstein's  own  writings,  especially  Conversations 
on  Music  and  the  Gedanken-Korb.  His  opinions  of  composers  are 
not  always   to  be  accepted,  but  otherwise  he  is  an  excellent  guide. 


RUBINSTEIN  THE  LEONINE  307 

the  note  in  some  certain  way  that  I  succeeded  in  doing  as 
he  wanted."  Hans  von  Biilow  evidently  shared  Rubin- 
stein's idea,  for  in  his  edition  of  Beethoven's  sonatas  he 
marks  certain  passages  of  notes  "quasi  clarinet"  "quasi 
flute,"  etc.,  "evidently  to  give  the  student  the  key  to  his 
idea";  and  he  advised  students  of  the  piano  to  imitate 
Joachim's  (violin)  tone  in  playing  Beethoven  rather  than 
Sarasate's. 

"  Rubinstein's  sense  of  touch  was  almost  as  keenly  devel- 
oped as  that  of  a  blind  man,  He  loved  to  caress  things  with 
his  hands;  where  others  smelled  a  rose,  he  touched  its  soft 
petals  with  his  finger  tips,  much  as  he  caressed  a  piano- 
forte when  drawing  forth  the  witching  sweetness  of  a 
Chopin  nocturne." 

Like  Liszt,  Rubinstein  often  played  wrong  notes,  abso- 
lute mechanical  accuracy  being  at  times  incompatible  with 
such  impetuous  emotionality  as  his.  There  were  times 
when  the  piano-forte  was  quite  inadequate  for  the  expres- 
sion of  his  feelings.  Miss  McArthur,  who  used  to  turn 
the  pages  for  him  when  he  practised,  saw  him  when  ex- 
cited take  his  hands  and  arms,  bang  them  down  on  the 
keys,  and  say  with  a  growl:  "It  gets  so  small  for  me,  I  feel 
I  could  use  twenty  like  this."  Five  minutes  later  he  would 
play  a  Chopin  prelude  or  a  Schumann  piece  with  a  deli- 
cacy unimaginable! 

Another  pupil  of  Rubinstein,  Adele  Hippius,  was  so 
fortunate  as  to  be  able  to  hear  the  lion  in  one  of  his  roaring 
moods.  "This  must  sound  majestic,"  he  said  of  the  piece 
in  hand,  and  while  he  spoke  he  began  to  play.  "  He  grew 
excited,  heated,  hair  fell  over  his  forehead;  he  and  the 
piano  seemed  to  make  but  one.  Then  appeared  an  ex- 
quisite melody,  accompanied  by  chords  in  the  bass  and 
strengthened  by  the  surging  of  powerful  arpeggios  over 
the  entire  instrument.  He  increased  the  difficulties,  he 
stormed  like  full  orchestra,  the  piano  almost  gave  way 


3o8  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

under  his  hands.  The  impression  was  so  overwhelming, 
my  nerves  were  so  wrought  up,  that  I  felt  stifled.  I 
glanced  at  my  neighbor — she  had  left  the  room  weeping. 
We  all  had  a  feeling  of  involuntary  terror  as  if  in  the  pres- 
ence of  some  elementary  power  of  nature.  Yes,  Rubin- 
stein was  in  truth  awe-inspiring.* 

*  The  reader  should  not  fail  to  secure  the  four  numbers  of  the  Etude 
(Philadelphia:  Theodore  Presser,)  in  which  the  English  version  of  Adele 
Hippius's  class-room  reports  appeared. 


XIX 

PADEREWSKI  AND  HIS  SECRETS 

When  Ignaz  Jan  Paderewski  gave  his  first  recital  in 
Paris,  in  1888,  there  was  but  a  small  audience  in  the  Salle 
Erard.  Luckily  it  included  the  eminent  conductor,  Co- 
lonne,  who  was  so  much  impressed  that  he  engaged  the 
young  Polish  pianist  to  appear  at  one  of  his  orchestral 
concerts.  Playing  before  a  large  audience,  he  thus  won  an 
immediate  success  which  made  him  "  the  lion  of  the  Paris 
season." 

Nevertheless,  when  this  musician  with  the  "wonderful 
aureole  of  golden  hair,"  made  his  first  appearance  in  Lon- 
don, on  May  9,  1890,  the  receipts  did  not  exceed  ;£io,  and 
the  critics  could  not  understand  "the  fuss  that  had  been 
made  of  him"  in  Paris.  The  audience,  however,  liked  him 
from  the  first;  the  second  recital  converted  the  critics,  and 
thenceforth  he  played  to  full  houses.  In  1894,  when  he 
made  a  provincial  tour  of  England,  including  twenty-two 
cities,  the  seats  were,  in  some  places,  all  sold  two  months  in 
advance,  and  in  London,  thereafter,  he  seldom  gave  a  con- 
cert which  did  not  yield  $5,000 — as  much  as  Patti  earned 
in  the  most  brilliant  period  of  her  operatic  career.  Enthu- 
siasts who  could  not  pay  a  guinea  a  seat  provided  them- 
selves with  breakfast  and  lunch  and  waited  all  day  for  the 
doors  of  St.  James's  Hall  to  open. 

It  was  in  November,  1891,  that  Paderewski  made  his 
first  appearance  in  New  York.  He  played  thr^e  times  with 
orchestra  in  Carnegie  Hall,  which  had  been  dedicated  six 

309 


3IO  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

months  before.  "No  one,"  as  Mr.  Krehbiel  remarked  in 
a  review  of  Paderewski's  first  American  tours,  "thought 
then  of  the  use  of  the  vast  audience-room  for  recitals,  not 
even  Mr.  Paderewski  or  his  managers.  In  fact,  the  recital 
idea  was  still  in  its  infancy,  the  great  virtuosi  who  had  pre- 
ceded him,  like  Rubinstein  and  Von  Biilow,  having  other 
artists  associated  with  them  to  give  the  interest  of  variety 
to  their  entertainments."  It  was  soon  found  that  Pader- 
ewski did  not  need  such  variety  to  draw  audiences.  Five 
times  he  played  in  rapid  succession  at  the  Madison  Square 
Garden  Concert  Hall.  By  this  time  popular  enthusiasm 
had  assumed  such  dimensions  that  it  was  found  necessary 
to  return  to  Carnegie  Hall,  which  has  room  for  over  three 
thousand  hearers;  and  this  hall  was  thenceforth  crowded 
at  every  recital,  although  the  price  of  seats  was  almost  on 
an  operatic  scale.  He  played  i8  times  in  New  York  alone 
during  this  season. 

As  a  matter  of  course  he  returned  to  America  the  follow- 
ing season,  during  which  he  played  67  times,  the  receipts 
aggregating  $180,000.  Rubinstein,  in  1872,  got  $50,000 
for  215  concerts.  On  his  third  American  tour  Pade- 
rewski earned  $247,855  by  playing  86  times. 

It  is  needless  to  dwell  on  his  triumphs  during  all  the 
tours  he  has  made  in  this  country,  but  attention  may  be 
called  to  what  will  long  be  remembered  as  "Paderewski 
day."  On  the  afternoon  of  March  8,  1902,  the  eminent 
Pole  filled  both  the  largest  concert  hall  and  the  largest 
opera-house  in  New  York  to  the  last  seat.  Indeed,  at  both 
places  hundreds  more  tickets  might  have  been  sold  had  the 
supply  not  given  out.  At  Carnegie  Hall  he  gave  a  recital; 
at  the  Metropolitan  his  Manru  was  sung.  The  gross  re- 
ceipts at  the  two  houses  cannot  have  fallen  far  short  of 
$20,000.  This  was  something  new  under  the  sun.  Had 
Rubinstein  been  successful  as  an  opera  composer,  he  might 
have  anticipated  Paderewski  in  performing  such  a  double 


PADEREWSKI  AND  HIS   SECRETS       311 

feat.    As  it  was,  Poland  claimed  the  honor  of  setting  a  new 
standard  of  success. 

Paderewski  loves  his  piano;  still,  like  Liszt  and  Rubin- 
stein, he  loves  composing  better.  Pie  has  a  house  in  Paris, 
a  chateau  in  Switzerland,  and  he  has  expensive  habits  and 
hobbies;  so  has  his  wife.  He  needs,  therefore,  vast  sums 
of  money.  These  are  most  easily  earned  in  America,  where 
prices  can  be  asked  for  seats  that  few  would  pay  on  the 
Continent  of  Europe.  In  Germany,  for  this  reason,  he  has 
not  played  often;  but  when  he  has,  the  enthusiasm 
aroused  was  as  great  as  in  London  or  Paris,  New  York, 
Boston,  or  Chicago.  I  have  before  me  dozens  of  clippings 
from  Hamburg,  Breslau,  Vienna,  Dresden,  Munich,  Co- 
logne, and  other  German  papers,  and  all  agree  in  praising 
the  Polish  pianist  in  the  same  cordial  tone  as  the  English 
and  American  papers.  To  cite  a  few  samples:  the  emi- 
nent Hamburg  critic,  Ferdinand  Pfohl,  wrote:  "It  was 
like  a  Nikisch  concert,  the  same  exultation,  the  same  en- 
thusiasm. Never  before,"  adds  the  veteran  critic,  "did  an 
evening  of  two  and  one-half  hours  at  the  piano  seem  so 
short.  His  Chopin  playing  fairly  electrified  his  audience, 
even  such  small  compositions  as  the  G  flat  major  etude 
inspiring  his  hearers  to  a  degree  of  enthusiasm  bordering 
on  intoxication."  In  conservative  Leipsic,  too,  "the  suc- 
cess was  colossal,"  wrote  the  Leipziger  Zeilung,  adding: 
"Not  since  Liszt  has  a  pianist  been  received  as  M.  Pade- 
rewski was  last  night."  "The  public  did  not  applaud,  it 
raved,"  said  the  Tagehlatt.  "If  Paderewski  has  hitherto 
avoided  Germany  in  the  belief  that  he  might  be  received 
coolly,  he  must  have  been  thoroughly  cured  of  that  idea 
last  evening.  .  .  .  Concerning  his  colossal  success  in  our 
sister  city  of  Dresden  our  readers  have  already  been  in- 
formed." The  Breslau  General  Anzeiger  said:  "Miracles 
still  happen!  Here  is  a  pianist  who  does  not  play  to  half- 
empty  benches,  but  to  a  sold-out  hall,  and  not  at  the  Neue 


312  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

Boerse,  either,  but  in  the  far  larger  Breslau  Concerthaus. 
.  .  .  The  enthusiasm  of  the  public  knew  no  bounds.  Not 
since  Rubinstein  have  we  heard  such  storms  of  applause." 
The  Munich  Allgemeine  Zeitung^  in  trying  to  account  for 
Paderewski's  world-fame,  wrote:  "Far  from  being  a  mere 
drawing-room  pianist,  as  Oscar  Bie  called  him,  he  is  a  poet 
of  the  piano-forte,  who  dives  below  the  usual  level  and  re- 
f  veals  to  the  hearers  things  before  hidden.  At  the  same 
time  he  has  an  extraordinary  power  over  the  multitude. 
We  feel  inclined  to  say  that  in  Paderewski  Intimitdt  and 
popularity  are  commingled  in  equal  degrees;  he  is  a 
Chopin  infinitely  enlarged,  a  Chopin  for  the  many."  The 
same  critic  paid  him  the  compliment  of  declaring  him 
"simply  incomparable"  as  an  interpreter  of  Schumann,  in 
the  playing  of  whose  F  sharp  minor  sonata  he  "  reproduced 
unchanged  and  undiminished  the  warm  sensuality,  which 
shimmers  like  a  red  glow  through  the  musical  fabric,  the 
elasticity,  the  tenderness,  the  delicate  curves,  the  whole 
improvisational  character  of  this  music.  How  exquisitely 
he  played  the  scherzo!"  The  public  "acted  as  if  crazy  for 
joy." 

To  return  to  New  York.  Paderewski  was  not  only  the 
first  artist  who  found  it  necessary  to  go  to  the  largest  hall 
in  the  city  for  solo  recitals,  it  was  at  his  recitals  also  that 
the  enthusiasm  assumed  such  unprecedented  dimensions 
that  the  audience  refused  to  disperse  when  the  programme 
was  finished,  while  hundreds  rushed  forward  to  the  stage, 
clamoring  for  more  and  more,  till  the  recital  had  been 
lengthened  by  thirty  or  forty  minutes.  Some  newspapers 
referred  to  these  demonstrations  as  "  hysterical  feminine 
adoration";  yet  one  of  these  same  papers  once  referred  to 
"a  soul-stirring  run"  by  a  foot-ball  player  and  described 
scenes  of  delirious  joy  over  such  running  and  kicking — 
scenes  which,  if  they  had  occurred  at  a  piano  recital  as  an 
expression  of  the  genuine  enthusiasm  of  refined  ladies  over 


PADEREWSKI  AND  HIS  SECRETS       313 

Paderewski's  inspired  playing  would,  of  course,  have  been 
"hysterical." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  these  epiludes  are  the  most  enjoyable 
parts  of  the  Paderewski  recitals;  for  the  great  and  genuine 
interest  and  enthusiasm  of  those  who  remain  react  on  the 
pianist  and  bring  out  his  very  best.  There  is  a  certain 
stiffness  about  a  concert;  this  disappears  when  nearly 
everybody  is  standing  and  many  are  trying  to  get  as  near 
the  pianist  as  possible.  Even  the  most  blas6  of  musicians 
(and  Paderewski  is  far  from  being  blas6)  would  be  stirred 
at  sight  of  these  hundreds  of  upturned  faces,  mostly  of 
beautiful  women,  eagerly  awaiting  to  hear  more  of  his 
musical  gospel,  and  uniting  in  a  great  shout  of  joy  when 
he  crosses  the  stage  to  play  one  more  piece. 

A  music  "professor"  in  St.  Louis  once  left  the  hall  in 
the  midst  of  a  Paderewski  performance,  with  upturned 
nose,  to  show  his  contempt  for  this  "charlatan."  I  once 
spoke  to  the  pianist,  Alfred  Reisenauer  (who  was  furiously 
jealous  of  his  Polish  rival),  about  Paderewski's  amazing 
general  culture — his  being  able  to  converse  brilliantly  on  all 
conceivable  topics  not  related  to  music — when  Reisenauer 
retorted:  "Yes,  he  knows  everything — except  music." 
There  are  many  "professors"  and  professionals  who  take 
great  delight  in  proclaiming  that  Paderewski  "cannot 
play  any  more."  The  public  laughs  at  these  things  and 
crowds  the  recitals  of  Paderewski  more  than  ever,  know- 
ing that  he  now  plays  with  a  maturity  of  genius  that 
makes  him  more  fascinating  even  than  formerly.* 

What  is  the  secret  of  Paderewski's  great  and  continued 
success — or,  rather,  what  are  the  secrets  ? 

His  strength  lies  not,  like  Samson's,  in  his  hair;  that 

*  A  bit  of  advice  to  piano  pupils:  If  your  teacher  sneers  at  Pade- 
rewski, leave  him  at  once.  An  instructor  who  is  not  sufficiently  musical 
to  appreciate  the  playing  of  the  greatest  living  pianist  cannot  possibly 
teach  you  anything  worth  while. 


314  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

superstition  was  exploded  long  ago;  in  fact,  one  can  hardly 
see  his  hair  in  the  religious  light  that  dims  the  stage  while 
he  plays.  Nor  does  his  strength  lie  in  his  muscles,  though 
his  arms  have  the  supple  power  of  superfine  steel,  as  every 
one  knows  who  has  ever  had  the  honor  of  shaking  hands 
with  him.  Nor,  again,  does  he  ever  stoop  to  conquer. 
Never  does  he  resort  to  clap-trap,  trickiness,  or  sensation- 
alism in  order  to  win  applause.  He  makes  no  concessions 
to  the  popular  craving  for  cheap  tunes,  but  gives  his  hear- 
ers only  the  choicest  products  of  the  highest  musical  genius, 
from  Bach  to  the  present  day.  There  are  successful  pia- 
nists who  draw  attention  to  their  skill  by  an  obtrusive  brill- 
iancy of  execution  and  a  parading  of  difficulties.  That  is 
not  Paderewski's  way.  On  the  contrary,  one  of  the  main 
secrets  of  his  success  lies  in  this,  that  he  makes  us  forget 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  technic  by  his  supreme  mastery  of 
tt,  and  that  he  makes  the  musical  ideas  he  interprets  absorb- 
ingly interesting  to  all  classes  0}  hearers. 

This  is  a  point  of  superlative  importance.  Paradoxical  as 
it  may  seem,  it  may  be  said  that  the  genius  of  a  musician  is 
revealed  most  unmistakably  in  his  power  over  the  unmusi- 
cal. Genius  makes  extremes  meet;  it  fascinates  not  only 
those  who  have  the  most  highly  cultivated  taste  for  music, 
but  also  those  to  whom  the  art  is  usually  a  sealed  book  and 
the  playing  of  ordinary  musicians  "all  Greek."  Pade- 
rewski's genius  translates  this  Greek  into  English  or  any 
other  language  you  please.  There  are  many  persons  who 
shun  piano  recitals  as  intolerable  bores,  but  who  never 
miss  a  Paderewski  concert,  because,  when -he  plays,  Bach 
and  Beethoven  are  no  longer  riddles  to  them  but  sources 
of  pleasure. 

De  Pachmann  once  said  that  Paderewski  was  the  most 
modest  artist  he  had  ever  seen.  He  certainly  is  free  from 
that  vanity  which  is  the  principal  cause  of  the  failure  of 
many  brilliant  pianists.    They  try  to  show  the  public,  not 


PADEREWSKI  AND  HIS  SECRETS       315 

how  beautiful  the  music  of  the  great  masters  is,  but  what 
clever  performers  they  themselves  are.  The  public  soon 
notes  their  insincerity  and  neglects  their  concerts.  Pade- 
rewski,  on  the  other  hand,  never  plays  at  an  audience.  He 
hardly  seems  to  play  jor  it,  but  for  himself.  I  once  asked 
him  if  he  ever  felt  nervous  in  playing,  and  he  said  he  often 
did,  but  only  because  he  feared  he  might  not  satisfy  himself. 

"As  a  boy  Paderewski  used  to  listen  to  the  vibrations 
that  make  up  a  tone,  and  modify  his  touch  till  he  got  these 
vibrations  just  as  his  delicate  sense  of  tonal  beauty  wanted 
them.  Something  similar  to  this  he  does  to  this  day  at  his 
recitals.  He  has  no  looks,  no  grimaces  for  the  audience. 
No  public  smile  ever  sits  on  his  lips;  yet  if  you  look  closely 
you  will  observe  subtle  changes  of  expression  on  his  feat- 
ures;, he  is  listening  intently  to  his  own  playing,  and  if  the 
tone  is  as  beautiful  as  he  wishes  it,  an  expression  of  pleas- 
ure flits  across  his  features.  He  seems  to  be  far  away  in 
dreamland,  playing  for  himself  alone;  and  his  chief  rewaid 
is  not  the  applause  of  the  audience  but  the  delight  in  his 
own  playing." 

This  paragraph,  cited  from  my  Paderewski  and  his  Art* 
unveils  one  of  the  principal  secrets  of  Paderewski 's  power 
over  his  audiences.  He  hypnotizes  them  by  being  seem- 
ingly hypnotized  himself.  Like  Dr.  Wlillner,  he  becomes 
the  medium  through  whom  the  great  composers  speak  to 
the  hearers.  And  yet  he  does  not  in  the  lefist  sacrifice  his 
personahty.  On  the  contrary,  his  individuality  colors 
everything  he  plays,  and  therein  lies  another  secret  of  his 
success. 

In  order  to  realize  what  an  important  part  the  individ- 
uality of  an  artist  plays  in  the  interpretation  of  a  piece  of 
music,  the  reader  should  try  to  hear  a  familiar  piece  as 

*  This  little  book  contains  many  details  regarding  his  playing  of  Bach, 
Beethoven,  Schubert,  Mendelssohn,  Schumann,  Chopin,  Liszt,  and  ether 
masters,  which  may  be  helpful  to  readers  of  the  present  volume. 


3i6  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

played  by  several  famous  pianists  on  that  ingenious  instru- 
ment, the  Welte-Mignon  piano,  which  reproduces  with 
photographic  accuracy  every  subtle  detail  of  each  artist's 
style.  A  more  vivid  impression  still  is  conveyed  by  placing 
the  perforated  rolls  for  these  pieces  on  the  floor  side  by  side 
and  noting  how  amazingly  the  hole-patterns  differ.  In 
some  cases  it  seems  impossible  that  these  varying  patterns 
of  holes  and  slits  should  represent  the  same  music;  but 
they  do;  and  very  slight  changes  suffice  to  make  all  the 
difference  between  commonplace  or  poetic  phrasing. 

A  Paderewski  roll  would  differ  from  others  particularly 
in  the  greater  number  of  rhetorical  pauses.  If  a  great  orator 
rattled  off  a  speech  in  the  same  mechanical,  metronomic 
manner  in  which  most  pianists  reel  off  a  piece  of  music,  he 
would  make  but  little  impression  on  his  hearers.  That  is 
not  Paderewski 's  way.  He  knows  the  artistic  value  of  a 
pause,  the  emotional  purport  of  suspense.  I  have  read 
criticisms  in  which  he  was  censured  for  these  pauses — 
which  he  makes,  it  is  needless  to  say,  to  give  the  hearer  a 
chance  to  dwell  for  a  few  seconds  on  some  exceptionally 
beautiful  melodic  turn  or  modulation.  ^  These  critics  re- 
mind me  of  a  story  I  heard  one  day  at  John  Muir's  home 
in  California.  A  party  of  Sierra  enthusiasts  had  with  them 
a  lady  on  whose  senses  mountain  scenery  made  no  impres- 
sion. When  they  paused  at  a  specially  fine  point  of  view 
she  waited  patiently  for  a  while  and  then  asked:  "Are  we 
stopping  here  for  any  particular  reason?"  That  question 
has  been  a  standing  joke  among  members  of  the  Sierra 
Club  ever  since. 

Paderewski  has  particular  reasons  for  every  short  stop 
he  makes,  and  that  is  one  of  the  secrets  of  his  success — one 
of  the  ways  in  which  he  helps  his  hearers  to  appreciate  the 
beauty  and  grandeur  of  good  music. 

The  pause  is  either  a  momentary  cessation  of  sound  or 
a  prolongation  of  a  note  or  chord.  Many  of  his  most  ravish- 


PADEREWSKI  AND  HIS  SECRETS       317 

ing  effects  are  produced  by  holding  down  the  sustaining 
pedal  and  lingering  lovingly  over  one  of  those  thrilling  chord 
mixtures  he  alone  knows  how  to  make.  Paderewski  is  the 
wizard  of  the  pedal.  As  I  have  remarked  elsewhere,  "  No 
other  pianist,  except  perhaps  Chopin,  has  understood  the 
art  of  pedalling  as  Paderewski  understands  it.  In  this 
respect  he  is  epoch-making;  his  pedalling  is  a  source  of 
unending  delight  and  study  to  connoisseurs.  No  expert 
could  mistake  his  chords  and  arpeggios  for  those  of  any 
other  pianist.  No  other  has  quite  such  a  limpid  yet 
deep  tone,  a  tone  of  such  marvellous  carrying  power 
that  its  pianissimo  is  heard  in  the  remotest  parts  of  the 
house;  no  other  can,  like  him,  make  you  hear  soft, 
voluptuous  horns,  lugubrious  bassoons,  superbly  sus- 
tained organ-pedals,  and  amorous  violoncello  tones.  So 
perfect  is  his  pedalling  that  he  never,  by  any  accident, 
blurs  his  harmonies  and  passages,  while  at  the  same 
time  he  produces  tone-colors  never  before  dreamt  of  in 
a  piano-forte.^  By  rapid  successive  pressure  of  the  pedal 
he  succeeds  in  giving  the  piano  a  new  power,  that  of  chang- 
ing the  quality  of  a  tone  after  it  has  be€n  struck,  as  every 
one  must  have  noticed,  for  instance,  in  his  performance  of 
his  popular  minuet.  ...  If  occasion  calls  for  it,  he  can 
convert  the  piano  into  a  stormy  orchestra;  but  he  has  a 
way  of  his  own  for  producing  orchestral  effects  which  de- 
pends on  the  skilful  use  of  the  pedals  instead  of  on  mus- 
cular gradations  of  forte  and  piano.  For  instance,  as  the 
surging  sounds  of  some  mighty  arpeggios  gradually  die 
away  over  the  pedal,  you  will  hear  above  them  a  weird, 
sustained  tone,  like  that  of  a  muted  horn  from  another 
world;  another  moment  you  will  hear  the  wail  of  an  oboe, 
or  the  majestic  strains  of  trombones,  or  the  sonorous  boom 
of  a  bell;  and  in  the  Chopin  Berceuse  he  converts  the  piano 
into  an  ^olian  harp  whose  harmonies  seem  to  rise  and  fall 
with  the  gentle  breezes.    By  the  clever  use  of  pedal  and 


3i8  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

arpeggios  he  produces  that  'continuous  stream  of  tone' 
which  was  characteristic  of  Chopin's  playing,  and  which, 
in  its  unbroken  succession  of  multi-colored  harmonies, 
reminds  one  of  the  magic  tonecolors  and  mystic  sounds 
that  come  up  from  the  invisible  Wagnerian  orchestra  at 
Bayreuth." 

It  was  Liszt  whose  passionate,  soaring  genius  first 
sought  to  convert  the  piano  into  an  orchestra.  Rubinstein 
followed  his  example.  A  London  critic  spoke  of  his  wield- 
ing his  hammers  with  superhuman  energy,  making  the 
piano- forte  shake  to  its  centre;  and  the  same  critic  declared 
that  Paderewski  "transcends  his  exemplar  in  fury  and 
force  of  blow."  He  even  "pounds"  sometimes;  but  that 
is  not  his  fault,  it  is  the  fault  of  his  instruments.  No  piano 
has  ever  been  built,  or  ever  will  be  built,  that  can  be  con- 
verted into  a  full  orchestra  with  all  the  Wagnerian  brass 
and  Oriental  instruments  of  percussion  which  this  player 
has  in  mind  when  he  comes  to  one  of  his  tidal  waves  of 
sound,  his  cyclonic  climaxes.  It  was  because  of  this  that 
Liszt  forsook  the  piano  and  began  to  write  for  and  conduct 
the  orchestra;  and  for  this  it  is  that  Paderewski  is  devoting 
himself  more  and  more  to  orchestral  composition. 

At  the  same  time,  the  creative  gift  was  his  from  the  be- 
ginning. He  has  always  played  like  a  composer  as  well  as 
Jike  a  virtuoso,  and  therein  lies  another  secret  of  his  suc- 
cess. Liszt  and  Rubinstein  likewise  stirred  their  audience 
so  deeply,  not  because  they  were  accomplished  pianists — 
the  world  is  full  of  accomplished  pianists — but  because 
they  were  great  composers.  On  hearing  Paderewski's 
Manru  I  said  to  myself:  "  It  is  no  wonder  that  a  man  who 
had  it  in  him  to  create  such  an  opera  moves  me  more 
deeply  by  his  piano  playing  than  any  one  else." 

The  public  dearly  loves  a  dramatic  climax,  in  the  orches- 
tral manner,  but  it  also  loves  the  purely  pianistic  style  as 
represented  by  Chopin.     Speaking  of  this  phase  of  Pade- 


PADEREWSKI  AND   HIS   SECRETS       319 

rewski's  art  of  interpretation,  an  English  critic  has  re- 
marked: .-His  art  has  a  certain  princely  quality.  It  is 
indescribably  galant  and  chevaleresque.  He  knows  all  the 
secrets  of  the  most  subtle  dancing  rhythms.  He  is  a  rein- 
carnation of  Chopin,  with  almost  the  added  virility  of  a 
Rubinstein.  No  wonder  such  a  man  fascinates,  bewilders, 
and  enchants  the  public." 

He  fascinates,  bewilders,  and  enchants  also  by  his  tempo 
rubato,  his  poetic  freedom  of  movement,  a  freedom  and 
irregularity  which,  alas!  cannot  be  taught  any  more  than 
flying  like  a  humming-bird  unless  you  are  born  a  hum- 
ming-bird. Paderewski  has  no  use  for  a  left-hand  metro- 
nome; his  two  hands  go  together,  now  faster,  now  slower, 
like  the  speech  of  an  impassioned  actor  or  orator.  He  lin- 
gers over  bars  which  have  pathos  in  their  melody  or  har- 
mony, and  slightly  accelerates  his  pace  in  rapid,  agitated 
moments;  but  he  does  all  this  so  naturally,  so  unobtru- 
sively, that  one  does  not  consciously  notice  any  change  in 
the  pace — it  seems  the  natural  movement  of  the  piece.  Vir- 
gil would  have  added  to  his  varium  et  mutahile  semper 
jemina  the  words  et  mazurka,  could  he  have  heard  Pade- 
rewski play  one  of  Chopin's  pieces  of  that  genre. 

Many  concert-goers  are  dismayed  (though  they  would 
never  confess  it)  when  they  see  a  Beethoven  sonata  on  the 
program.  They  have  come  to  look  upon  a  Beethoven 
sonata  as  being  like  a  sermon — something  edifying  and 
educational,  but  not  particularly  entertaining.  If  they  hap- 
pen to  hear  Paderewski  play  it,  they  soon  open  wide  their 
eyes  in  astonishment  and  delight.  He  plays  this  music 
with  a  poetic  freedom  which  Beethoven  would  have  been 
the  first  to  applaud.  If  any  one  imagines  that  Lamond's 
academic  readings  of  Beethoven  come  nearer  the  real  thing 
than  Paderewski's,  let  him  read  a  book  previously  referred 
to,  Beethoven^ s  Piano-Playing,  in  which  Franz  Kullak  has 
brought  together  the  observations  of  the  great  composer's 


320  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

contemporaries,  and  he  will  be  taught  otherwise.  Bee^^ 
thoven  was  impulsive — extremely  impulsive;  to  play  Tiim 
dryly,  tamely,  is  to  insult  his  genius  and — empty  the  con- 
cert halls.  Like  Liszt  and  Rubinstein,  Paderewski  dares 
to  linger  fondly  over  a  beautiful  melody,  and  to  storm 
wildly  and  lawlessly — even  to  ''pound" — in  stormy  pas- 
sages, just  as  Beethoven  himself  did,  according  to  the  tes- 
timony of  his  friends. 

Even  Paderewski,  however,  cannot  make  Beethoven 
quite  as  popular  as  Chopin  and  Liszt.  These  two  have 
long  been  and  still  are  the  favorites  at  piano  recitals,  and 
one  important  reason  why  Paderewski  draws  so  much 
larger  audiences  than  his  rivals  is  that  he  plays  Chopin 
and  Liszt  better  than  they  do.  While  De  Pachmann  almost 
equalled  him  as  an  interpreter  of  the  delicate,  dainty,  brill- 
iant side  of  Chopin,  he  quite  failed  to  do  justice  to  the 
dramatic,  masculine,  energetic  side  of  that  composer's 
genius,  thus  helping  to  perpetuate  the  foolish  notion  that 
Chopin  is  always  "feminine."  Paderewski  showed  that 
there  is  a  virile — nay,  a  leonine — side,  not  only  to  the  polo- 
naises, sonatas,  and  scherzos,  but  even  to  some  of  the  noc- 
turnes. At  the  same  time,  how  exquisitely  he  plays  those 
(dainty  female  valses  known  as  mazurkas !  The  muscular 
pianists  of  the  fair  sex  who  give  such  athletic  exhibitions  of 
virility  should  go  and  learn  from  this  strong  man  the  secret 
of  tenderness  and  poetic  refinement. 

After  one  of  the  Paderewski  recitals  in  New  York,  Dr. 
Wm.  Mason,  a  pupil  of  Liszt,  said  to  me:  "  It  seems  strange 
that  the  best  Liszt  performer  to-day  should  be  Paderewski, 
who  was  not  a  pupil  of  Liszt  and  never  even  heard  him 
play."  How  did  he  accomplish  this  amazing  feat?  By 
way  of  answer  let  me  cite  two  sentences  from  an  article  by 
Alexander  McArthur,  the  brilliant  biographer  of  Rubin- 
stein and  for  a  time  his  secretary:  "  Paderewski 's  Liszt 
was  a  revelation  and  a  novelty — in  fact,  while  listening  I 


PADEREWSKI  AND  HIS  SECRETS       321 

could  hardly  grasp  the  stupendous  fact  that  new  beauties 
had  been  interpreted  in  a  Liszt  rhapsody."  "  He  did  what 
I  have  never  known  any  other  pianist  do:  he  made,  one 
forget  the  display  oj  technic  and  he  put  meaning  in  his  pas- 
sage worky  There  lies  one  secret  of  his  success  as  a  Liszt 
player,  one  reason  why  he  arouses  such  frenzied  enthusi- 
asm with  the  rhapsodies,  Etudes,  and  other  pieces  of  the 
maligned,  the  misunderstood,  the  wonderful  Liszt. 

Another  secret,  another  reason  for  his  success,  not  only 
as  a  Liszt  plaj^er  but  as  an  interpreter  in  general,  lies  in 
his  rhapsodic  style.  No  matter  what  Paderewski  plays,  he 
usually  seems  to  be  improvising,  to  follow  the  inspiration 
of  the  moment,  to  create  the  music  while  he  performs  it. 
His  playing  is  the  negation  of  the  mechanical  in  music, 
the  assassination  of  the  metronome.  When  ordinary 
pianists  play  a  Liszt  rhapsody  there  is  nothing  in  their 
performance  that  a  musical  stenographer  could  not  note 
down  just  as  it  is  played.  But  what  Paderewski  plays  could 
not  be  put  down  on  paper,  even  for  the  Welte-Mignon  re- 
productive piano.  For  such  subtle  nuances  of  color  and 
accent  there  are  no  signs  in  our  musical  alphabet.  But  it 
is  precisely  these  unwritten  and  unwritable  things  that 
constitute  the  soul  of  music  and  the  instinctive  command 
of  which  distinguishes  a  genius  from  a  mere  musician. 

If  Paderewski  were  merely  a  musician  he  could  never 
have  won  the  fabulous  success  the  world  is  talking  about. 
It  is  because  he  has  a  mind  trained  and  active  in  many 
branches  of  knowledge  that  he  is  able  to  sound  the  deepest 
■depths  of  music.  The  edge  of  his  musical  intelligence  is  so 
keen  because  it  has  been  sharpened  on  more  than  one 
grindstone.  His  feelings,  at  the  same  time,  were  deepened 
by  domestic  affliction — the  death  of  his  first  wife  and  of  his 
invalid  son.  Grief  has  ever  been  a  fertilizer  of  genius,  a 
high-school  for  artists.  In  describing  the  portrait  of 
Paderewski  by  Bume- Jones,  Mr.  James  Huneker  wrote: 


:X 


-^ 


322  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

"It  seems  to  me  to  be  the  best  and  most  spiritual  inter- 
pretation we  have  had  as  yet  of  this  spiritual  artist.  His 
life  has  been  full  of  sorrow,  of  adversity;  of  viciousness 
never.  Nature  paints  every  meanness,  every  moral  weak- 
ness with  unsparing  brush,  and  I  suppose,  after  all,  one  of 
the  causes  of  Paderewski's  phenomenal  success  has  been 
his  expressive,  poetic  personality.  His  heart  is  pure,  his 
life  clean,  his  ideals  lofty.  He  is  the  Beau  Seigneur  of  the 
key-board,  a  sort  of  conquering  Admirable  Crichton." 

To  Paderewski  the  piano  is  the  greatest  of  all  instru- 
ments. "  It  is  at  once  the  easiest  and  the  hardest,"  he  once 
remarked.  "Any  one  who  takes  up  piano  playing  with  a 
view  to  becoming  a  professional  pianist  has  taken  on  him- 
self an  awful  burden."  This  burden  he  bears  to  the  present 
day.  Let  no  one  suppose  that  because  he  is  so  famous  he 
has  ceased  to  be  a  hard  worker.  The  private  car  which 
takes  him  from  city  to  city  has  a  piano  on  which  he  daily 
practises  many  hours,  not  merely  the  pieces  he  has  to  play 
at  his  recitals,  but  technical  exercises.  In  this  way,  he  once 
said  to  an  interrogator,  "in  thirty  or  forty  minutes  I  can 
put  my  hands  in  better  condition  than  by  practising  two 
hours  on  the  music  of  my  programs.  But,"  he  added 
with  a  sly  smile,  "one  must  know  which  technical  exer- 
cises to  choose  and  how  to  practise  them." 

At  home,  when  tired  of  practising,  he  goes  into  the  field 
and  works  for  an  hour  or  two  in  the  sun,  which  refreshes 
him  greatly  and  allays  his  nervousness.  "  When  a  pianist 
has  overworked,  he  should  not  force  himself  to  further 
effort.  Instead,  he  ought  to  stop  practising  altogether  and 
go  out  into  the  country  and  rest  until  his  strained  nerves 
and  muscles  become  normal." 

When  he  practises,  his  mind  is  alert  and  in  full  control 
of  his  muscles  every  moment.  But  the  main  secret  con- 
cerning his  practising  is  that  he  does  much  of  it  in  the 
,  mind  alone.    He  once  told  me  that  he  often  lies  awake  at 


PADEREWSKI  AND  HIS  SECRETS 


2>^Z 


night  for  hours,  going  over  his  program  for  the  next  recital 
mentally,  note  by  note,  trying  to  get  the  very  essence  of 
every  bar,  every  subtle  detail  of  accent  and  shading.  In 
the  daytime,  too,  these  details  haunt  him.  *'If  I  walk  or 
ride,  or  merely  rest,  I  go  on  thinking  all  the  time,  and  my 
nerves  get  no  real  rest.  But  when  I  play  billiards  I  can 
forget  everything,  and  the  result  is  mental  rest  and  physical 
rest  combined." 


PART  ir 
FOUR  TYPES  OF  VIOLINISTS 


XX 
PAGANINI  AND  KUBELIK 

NiccoLo   Paganini 

The  violin  was  the  first  of  all  the  musical  instruments 
now  in  use  to  attain  perfection.  While  all  the  others,  with- 
out exception,  are  still  being  improved  from  decade  to 
decade,  the  best  violins  in  existence  were  made  two  centu- 
ries ago  by  Antonio  Stradivari.  Innumerable  experiments 
have  shown  that  every  deviation  from  his  models  results 
in  a  deterioration  of  tone.  Fortunately,  many  of  the  best 
of  the  Cremona  instruments  are  still  in  use,  unimpaired  by 
lapse  of  years.  Indeed,  the  success  of  nearly  every  great 
violinist  is  inseparably  associated  with  some  old  Italian 
instrument  to  which  his  soul  was  wedded. 

The  Italians  also  contributed  the  first  of  the  great  vio- 
linists, Corelli  (1653-17 13)  and  Tartini  (i 692-1 770).  But 
with  the  lapse  of  time  the  musical  activity  of  Italy  came  to 
be  absorbed  almost  entirely  by  the  opera,  which  helps  to 
explain  why  Italy's  list  of  prominent  violinists  is  so  much 
smaller  than  that  of  some  other  countries. 

Besides  perfecting  the  violin  and  providing  the  first 
great  players  on  it,  Italy  also  gave  to  the  world  the  man 
who  first  revealed  all  its  technical  possibilities.  His  name 
was  Niccolo  Paganini,  and  he  was  born  at  Genoa  in  1782. 
His  father  gave  him  lessons  on  the  mandolin;  the  violin 
he  practised  from  the  age  of  six.  Three  years  later  he 
played  in  public  for  the  first  time.    At  the  age  of  fourteen 

327 


328  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

he  was  sent  to  Parma  to  continue  his  studies  with  an  emi- 
nent musician  named  Rolla.  When  the  boy  called  on 
him,  Rolla  was  ill  and  did  not  wish  to  see  any  one;  but 
hearing  the  visitor  playing  his  new  concerto,  the  manu- 
script of  which  lay  on  the  rack,  he  jutnped  out  of  bed  and 
hastened  to  the  music-room  to  see  the  prodigy.  He  frankly 
told  Niccolo  he  could  not  teach  him  anything.  However, 
he  did  give  him  lessons  for  a  few  months,  and  that  ended 
Paganini's  tutelage. 

He  now  travelled  and  gave  concerts  in  the  cities  of  Italy. 
Every  few  years  he  disappeared  for  a  time,  and  during 
these  periods  he  practised  immoderately,  ten  or  twelve 
hours  a  day.  This  excessive  work,  combined  with  a  life  of 
gambling  and  other  dissipations,  undermined  his  health 
and  made  him  an  invalid  for  life.  Often,  at  a  game  of 
chance,  he  lost  the  gains  from  several  concerts,  and  more 
than  once  he  had  to  sell  his  violin  to  keep  himself  afloat. 
In  this  condition  he  found  himself  one  day  at  Leghorn; 
but  a  French  merchant  named  Livron  kindly  lent  him  his 
violin,  a  Guarneri  of  superlative  excellence.  After  the 
concert  he  took  it  back  to  its  owner,  who,  however,  ex- 
claimed; "Never  will  I  profane  strings  which  your  fingers 
have  touched.  That  instrument  is  now  yours."  On  this 
violin  Paganini  subsequently  played  habitually,  and  when 
he  died  he  gave  it  to  the  city  of  Genoa,  which  preserved  it 
in  a  glass  case  in  the  local  museum. 

Of  the  many  romantic  stories  told  of  Paganini  none 
throws  more  light  on  his  character  as  an  artist  and  a  man 
than  one  which  he  himself  related.  At  Lucca  a  lady  whom 
he  had  long  loved  without  having  avowed  his  passion 
attended  his  concerts  with  great  regularity.  He  suspected 
that  she,  too,  loved  him,  but  there  were  reasons  for  con- 
cealing their  feelings.  One  day  he  told  her  he  would  play 
a  piece  in  which  the  situation  would  be  illustrated.  To 
the  court  he  announced  that  he  would  produce  a  novelty 


NICCOLO  PAGANINI  329 

entitled  Scene  amoureuse.  When  the  moment  arrived  he 
entered  the  room  with  only  two  strings  on  his  violin — the 
first  and  the  fourth.  *'I  had  composed  a  kind  of  dia- 
logue," he  continues,  "in  which  the  most  tender  accents 
followed  the  outbursts  of  jealousy.  At  one  time,  chords 
representing  most  tender  appeals;  at  another,  plaintive 
reproaches;  cries  of  joy  and  anger,  happiness  and  pain. 
Then  followed  the  reconciliation;  and  the  lovers,  more 
convinced  than  ever,  executed  a  pas  de  deux,  which  ter- 
minated in  a  brilliant  coda.  This  novelty  was  eminently 
successful.  I  do  not  speak  of  the  languishing  looks  which 
the  goddess  of  my  thoughts  darted  at  me.  The  Princess 
Eliza  lauded  me  to  the  skies,  and  said  to  me  in  the  most 
gracious  manner:  'You  have  just  performed  impossi- 
bilities; would  not  a  single  string  suffice  for  your  talent?' 
I  promised  to  make  the  attempt.  The  idea  delighted  me; 
and,  some  weeks  after,  I  composed  my  military  sonata, 
entitled  Napoleon,  which  I  performed  on  the  25th  of 
August,  before  a  numerous  and  brilliant  Court.  Its  suc- 
cess far  surpassed  my  expectations.  My  predilection  for 
the  G  string  dates  from  this  period.  All  I  wrote  for  this 
string  was  received  with  enthusiasm,  and  I  daily  acquired 
greater  facility  upon  it:  hence  I  obtained  a  mastery  of  it, 
which  you  know,  and  should  no  longer  surprise  you." 

If,  at  a  concert,  one  of  Paganini's  strings  broke,  he 
quietly  played  on  as  if  nothing  had  happened.  He  was 
accused  of  making  the  strings  break  deliberately,  to  aston- 
ish his  audience,  having  previously  practised  the  piece  on 
three  strings.  He  was  quite  capable  of  doing  such  a  thing, 
for  there  was  a  good  deal  of  the  charlatan  about  him.  He 
would,  for  example,  imitate  on  his  strings  human  voices, 
agreeable  and  disagreeable,  and  the  voices  of  animals, 
including  the  braying  of  an  ass,  for  the  sake  of  cheap  ap- 
plause. But  as  for  practising  a  piece  specially  on  three 
strings  instead  of  the  usual  four,  that  was  not  necessary; 


330  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

his  amazing  technical  skill  helped  him  to  overcome  at  any 
moment  whatever  seemingly  unsurmountable  difficulties 
might  occur. 

Probably  no  violinist  before  Paganini  had  command  of 
such  a  great  variety  of  sounds  as  he  could  get  from  his 
strings.  He  also  greatly  enlarged  the  use  of  those  high, 
piping  tones  known  as  harmonics,  not  only  in  melody,  but 
in  staccato  runs  and  in  combination.  More  amazing  still 
were  his  simultaneous  pizzicato  and  bow  passages — the 
left  hand  playing  the  pizzicato  without  interrupting  the 
rapid  bowing  of  the  right  hand.  His  use  of  double  and 
even  triple  stops  astonished  the  natives  greatly.  He  exe- 
cuted wide  intervals  with  unerring  accuracy,  and  in  his 
use  of  the  bow  went  far  beyond  his  predecessors  and  con- 
temporaries. He  puzzled  the  experts  of  his  time  by  tuning 
his  violin  differently  from  the  usual  way,  although  this 
practice  was  known  already  in  the  seventeenth  and  eigh- 
teenth centuries  under  the  name  of  scordatura. 

During  the  greater  part  of  his  career  he  did  not  print  or 
even  write  out  the  solo  parts  of  the  pieces  with  which  he 
amazed  his  audiences,  for  fear  that  others  might  copy  his 
tricks.  When  his  twenty-four  Capricci  per  il  violino  solo, 
dedicati  agli  artisti  did  appear,  in  1831,  they  created  a 
sensation.  Liszt,  as  we  have  seen,  was  inspired  by  them 
to  attempt  to  develop  the  resources  of  the  piano-forte  as 
Paganini  had  developed  those  of  the  violin;  and  the  com- 
pliment was  doubled  in  value  by  the  fact  that  the  serious- 
t' minded  Schumann  also  arranged  these  Capricci  for  the 
piano,  in  his  own  way.  F^tis,  in  his  Notice  hiographique 
sur  Paganini,  mentions  the  fact  that  the  violinist  himself 
at  one  time  "conceived  the  singular  idea  of  arranging  his 
music  for  the  piano-forte." 

Until  he  was  forty-four  years  of  age  Paganini  did  not 
play  anywhere  except  in  the  cities  of  Italy.  In  1828,  at 
last,  he  left  his  native  coimtry  and  gave  a  series  of  con- 


NICCOLO  PAGANINI  331 

certs  in  Vienna  which  aroused  frenzied  demonstrations  of 
enthusiasm.  He  now  conquered  the  rest  of  Europe,  with 
financial  results  indicated  by  the  fact  that  at  his  death 
(1840)  he  left  his  son  $400,000. 

So  astounding  was  the  effect  of  his  playing  on  his  audi- 
ences that  all  sorts  of  fantastic  stories  were  invented  to 
explain  his  success.  One  individual  in  Vienna  told  Paga- 
nini  himself  that  he  had  distinctly  seen  the  devil  directing 
his  arm  and  guiding  his  bow.  Some  felt  sure  he  must  be 
the  devil  himself,  and  his  appearance  and  influence  on  the 
stage  seemed  to  bear  out  this  idea.  As  his  Belgian  biogra- 
pher remarks:  "The  extraordinary  expression  of  his  face, 
his  livid  paleness,  his  dark  and  penetrating  eye,  together 
with  the  sardonic  smile  which  played  upon  his  lips,  ap- 
peared to  the  vulgar,  and  to  certain  diseased  minds,  unmis- 
takable evidences  of  satanic  origin."  The  famous  Ger- 
man writer,  A.  B.  Marx,  describing  Paganini's  first  con- 
cert in  Berlin,  said:  "There  was  an  overture,  and  then, 
unheard  and  unexpected,  like  an  apparition,  he  was  in  his 
place  and  his  violin  was  already  sounding  while  the  multi- 
tude still  gaped  breathlessly  at  the  deathly  pale  man  with 
the  deep-sunk  eyes  sparkling  in  the  bluish-white  like  black 
diamonds;  with  the  over-bold  Roman  nose,  with  the  high 
forehead  emerging  from  the  black  mass  of  wildly  tangled 
hair,  ...  he  seemed  like  one  bewitched,  and  the  audi- 
ence, myself  included,  certainly  was  bewitched  by  him." 

Much  of  Paganini's  sensational  success  was  owing  to  the 
hypnotic  effect  of  his  spectral  personality,  to  the  general 
mystery  surrounding  him,  and  the  extraordinary  stories 
told  about  his  doings.  He  was  accused  of  having  commit- 
ted various  crimes,  among  them  highway  robbery  and 
murder  of  his  mistress  or  rival  in  a  fit  of  jealousy.  It  was 
while  expiating  his  crimes  in  prison,  so  the  legend  ran  on, 
that  he  acquired  his  extraordinary  skill  on  the  violin, 
especially  on  the  G  string,  the  only  one  that  remained  un- 


332  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

broken.  According  to  F^tis,  some  of  these  calumnies  were 
invented  for  purposes  of  blackmail  by  Parisian  scoundrels 
who  expected  him  to  pay  for  their  silence.  There  is  reason 
to  suspect  that  at  first  he  did  not  altogether  disapprove  of 
the  gossip  connected  with  his  personality,  as  it  was  good 
for  advertising  purposes.  But  at  a  later  period  he  was 
greatly  distressed  and  wrote  letters  to  the  newspapers  by 
way  of  refuting  his  calumniators.  Fetis  had  no  difficulty 
in  showing  that  these  stories  were  manufactured. 

Had  Paganini  been  an  ordinary  fiddler  who  owed  his 
extraordinary  success  entirely  or  chiefly  to  the  things  just 
spoken  of,  he  would  be  mentioned  in  the  history  of  charla- 
tanism only.  But  he  was  a  real  artist — a  man  of  consid- 
erable creative  power  even,  as  his  Capricci  show.  As  a 
player,  however,  he  was  a  mere  virtuoso,  like  Catalani, 
not  an  interpreter.  While  Liszt  was  the  Paganini  of  the 
piano — and  a  great  deal  more — Paganini  was  not  the  Liszt 
of  the  violin — far  from  it.  Liszt  was  the  greatest  of  all  in- 
terpreters, not  only  of  his  own  works,  but  of  those  of  other 
masters,  classical  and  romantic,  old  and  new.  Paganini 
could  play  his  own  music  only.  "In  his  concerts  in 
Paris,"  says  Fetis,  "he  thought  it  necessary  to  flatter  the 
national  feeling  by  playing  a  concerto  by  Kreutzer  and  one 
by  Rode — but  he  scarcely  rose  above  mediocrity  in  their 
performance."  .  .  .  The  unfavorable  impression  he  made 
in  Paris  with  these  two  pieces  was  a  lesson  to  him;  he 
never  played  from  that  time  any  music  but  his  own." 
The  same  eminent  authority  found  his  playing  lacking  in 
expression  and  sometimes  in  taste: 

"  He  was  cited  as  the  great  violin  singer — as  the  creator 
of  a  pathetic  and  dramatic  school,  applied  to  the  art  of 
bowing.  I  confess  that  I  do  not  look  at  his  prodigious 
talent  in  this  light.  What  I  experienced  in  listening  to  him 
was  astonishment— ^-unbounded  admiration;  but  I  was 
seldom  moved  by  that  feeling  which  appears  to  me  insep- 


NICCOLO  PAGANINI  333 

arable  from  the  true  expression  of  music.  The  poetry  of 
the  great  violinist  consisted,  principally,  in  his  brilliancy 
and,  if  I  may  be  allowed  the  expression,  the  mastery  of  his 
bow.  There  was  a  fulness  and  grandeur  in  his  phrasing — 
but  there  was  no  tenderness  in  his  accents." 

One  need  not  go  far  to  seek  the  cause  of  this  famous  vio- 
linist*s  limitations  as  an  artist.  He  lacked  culture — intel- 
lectual, emotional,  moral.  Fetis,  who  knew  him  person- 
ally, states  that  he  never  looked  into  a  book,  not  even  a 
story — history  and  the  sciences  being  sealed  books  to  him. 
Political  events  had  no  interest  for  him,  so  he  did  not  even 
read  the  newspapers.  His  travels  took  him  through  many 
interesting  regions,  but  scenery  had  no  charm  for  him. 
He  was  always  thinking  of  himself  and  of  the  money  he 
was  making.  Nor  had  he  any  of  the  generous  impulses 
that  moved  so  many  artists  to  help  other  struggling  artists 
or  the  poor  and  unfortunate.  There  could  be  no  tender- 
ness in  the  playing  of  such  a  man.  He  was  a  notorious 
miser,  and  all  the  world  was  amazed  when  he  made  Ber- 
lioz a  present  of  20,000  francs.  But  Ferdinand  Hiller 
showed  that  that  money  came  from  the  pocket  of  an- 
other, Paganini  simply  lending  himself  as  an  inter- 
mediary. 

So  far,  we  have  considered  the  secret  of  Paganini 's  suc- 
cess, and  the  incompleteness  of  that  success  from  the 
highest  (Lisztian)  artistic  point  of  view.  But  there  is  also 
a  special  "Paganini  secret"  of  which  he  often  spoke  and 
which  relates  to  the  facilitating  and  eliminating  of  violin 
practice.  While  he  had  practised  indefatigably  in  his 
youth,  it  was  known  that  in  the  later  years  of  his  career  he 
never  touched  his  instrument  except  at  concerts  and  re- 
hearsals. To  his  biographer,  Schottky,  he  often  said  that 
after  giving  up  playing  in  public  he  would  impart  to  the 
world  a  musical  secret  which  was  taught  in  no  conserva- 
tory, and  by  means  of  which  a  student  could  learn  as  much 


334  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

in  three  years  as  otherwise  in  ten  years  of  practice.  He 
gave  the  name  of  a  young  violoncellist  at  Naples,  a  medi- 
ocre musician  who  in  a  few  days,  by  the  use  of  this  meth- 
od, became  a  virtuoso,  astonishing  all  his  friends.  By 
applying  this  method  it  would,  he  claimed,  no  longer  be 
necessary  to  practise  four  or  five  hours  a  day. 

Paganini  died  without  writing  that  "study  for  the  vio- 
lin" or  revealing  his  secret.  From  the  fact,  however,  that 
he  admitted  doing  mute  practice,  it  has  been  plausibly  in- 
ferred that  his  secret  was  simply  mental  practice.  Pader- 
ewski  often  goes  through  his  programmes  mentally  again 
at  night,  deciding  on  details  of  fingering,  tone-color,  and 
phrasing,  and  other  artists  do  the  same,  in  bed  or  out,  at 
home  or  en  route.  "The  secret  of  learning  music  rapidly 
without  much  practice  is  in  the  mind,"  says  a  writer  in 
The  Etude,  adding:  "The  violin  teacher  should  do  every- 
thing in  his  power  to  develop  the  musical  mentality  of  the 
pupil.  The  pupil  who  learns  to  sing  at  sight,  so  that  he 
can  read  music  mentally,  who  learns  harmony  and  theory 
and  who  cultivates  his  musical  memory,  will  save  himself 
hundreds  0}  weary  hours  of  practice. ^^ 

Jan  Kubelik 

Of  contemporary  violinists  the  one  who  perhaps  most 
resembles  Paganini  is  Jan  Kubelik.  Concerning  his  brill- 
iant feats  of  execution  in  the  cities  of  Europe,  such  sensa- 
tional reports  had  come  across  the  ocean  that  when  he 
made  his  first  appearance  in  New  York  the  audience  had 
evidently  made  up  its  mind  beforehand  (as  in  the  case  of 
Tetrazzini)  to  be  enthusiastic;  he  was  received  with  such 
applause  as  is  usually  bestowed  only  on  old  favorites. 
And  after  the  first  pause  of  the  solo  instrument  in  the 
Paganini  concerto  he  was  playing,  the  audience  burst  out 
into  a  perfect  tornado  of  approval,  although,  up  to  that 


JAN  KUBELIK  335 

point,  the  young  Bohemian  violinist  had  done  nothing 
whatever  to  justify  such  a  demonstration.  His  playing, 
so  far,  might  have  been  easily  duplicated  by  any  one  of  the 
violinists  in  the  orchestra. 

As  the  concerto  proceeded  he  performed  feats  which  the 
orchestral  players  could  not  have  imitated.  Runs,  skips, 
trills,  double-stops,  simultaneous  pizzicato  and  arco,  and 
all  the  other  tricks  of  the  fiddler's  trade  were  at  his  com- 
mand to  astonish  the  natives.  Most  amazing  of  all  were 
his  flageolet-tone,  or  harmonics.  These  were  flawless — a 
New  York  audience  probably  had  never  heard  anything 
quite  equal  to  this  display  of  fireworks.  The  artistic  value 
of  a  melody  or  a  staccato  run  in  harmonics  is,  to  be  sure, 
not  much  above  that  of  a  tune  blown  on  one  of  the  bird 
whistles  sold  by  street  peddlers. 

The  choice  of  a  Paganini  concerto  for  his  American 
d^but  indicated  in  advance  what  sort  of  a  player  Kubelik 
was.  These  concertos  are  as  antiquated  as  the  operas  of 
Rossini  and  Donizetti  in  which  the  ornamental  style  is 
rampant.  Possibly  Paganini  himself,  could  he  be  brought 
back,  might  make  them  interesting  in  a  way  by  his  dia- 
bolical art  and  personality.  Julius  Eichberg  once  re- 
marked that  there  was  a  style  of  performance  which  could 
"make  a  phrase  that  was  absolutely  dripping  with  idiocy 
sound  like  a  sublime  and  beautiful  poem."  Maybe  Paga- 
nini had  this  style;  but  one  cannot  but  agree  with  Mr. 
Apthorp  when  he  declares  that  he  is  by  no  means  sure  that 
Paganini's  playing,  could  we  hear  it  now,  "would  not  pro- 
voke a  smile  in  us,  in  spite  of  all  the  man's  wondrous 
personal  charm  and  magnetism.  I  fear  this  'much  ado' 
of  the  style  would  be  impotent  to  hide  from  us  the ' nothing' 
of  the  music." 

Certainly  Mr.  Kubelik  did  not  succeed  in  restoring  life 
to  the  Paganini  concerto.  While  his  playing  was  compara- 
tively free  from  the  exaggerations  of  the  grandiose  style, 


336  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

he  lacked  the  exotic  charm  and  magnetism  of  Sarasate, 
Remenyi,  and  Ole  Bull,  and  as  an  artist  he  could  not  be 
placed  on  the  same  high  level  as  Ysaye,  Kreisler,  Kneisel, 
or  Maud  Powell.  The  only  piece  of  good  music  on  his 
first  program  was  Schumann's  hackneyed  Tr'dumereiy 
and  this  he  played  in  the  lackadaisical  salon  manner. 

Nor  was  his  second  concert  much  better.  "  The  fiddler's 
bagful  of  tricks  is  not  a  big  one,  and  he  is  forever  repeating 
himself,"  I  wrote  in  one  of  those  fits  of  impertinence  which 
make  critics  so  odious  to  the  public.  "Kubelik  beats  all 
living  rivals  in  his  ability  to  turn  the  violin  into  a  pipe  or  a 
banjo;  but  that  is  nothing  to  be  specially  proud  of — as  a 
musician.  Music  begins  where  technic  ends.  Paganini 
fiddling  is  circus  fiddling,  and  the  player  who  makes  a 
specialty  of  it  puts  himself  on  a  level  with  the  jugglers  who 
can  keep  half  a  dozen  knives  or  celluloid  balls  in  the  air  at 
the  same  time.  The  frantic  applause  at  Saturday's  con- 
cert, as  at  the  previous  Monday's,  showed  that  there  are 
thousands  of  persons  who  can  be  stirred  to  enthusiasm  by 
such  displays.  But  where  there  is  so  much  to  suggest  the 
circus,  would  it  not  be  well,  for  the  sake  of  consistency,  to 
have  sawdust  on  the  floor  and  peanuts  for  sale  in  the 
lobby?" 

Four  years  elapsed  before  Kubelik  returned  to  America, 
where  the  public  had  applauded  and  enriched  and  the 
critics  "roasted"  him.  In  the  meantime  the  European 
newspapers  had  from  time  to  time  reported  his  progress  in 
the  more  musical  side  of  his  art.  There  was  much  curi- 
osity in  New  York  to  hear  whether  these  reports  were  well 
founded.  They  certainly  were.  There  was  a  deeper  com- 
prehension of  good  music  in  Kubelik's  playing,  as  well  as 
the  spirit,  abandon,  and  enthusiasm  that  go  by  the  compre- 
hensive name  of  temperament.  He  now  gave  pleasure  to 
those  who  expect  a  violinist  to  do  more  than  dazzle  them. 
Still,  the  bulk  of  his  fortune — a  big  fortune  it  is — was  made 


JAN  KUBELIK  337 

by  dazzling.  Success  in  Music  and  How  it  is  Won  is  the 
title  of  this  book.  Obviously  there  are  various  ways  of 
winning  success,  due  to  the  fact  that  there  are  various 
kinds  of  audiences. 


XXI 
REMENYI  AND  OLE  BULL 

Edouard  Remenyi 

It  is  fortunate  for  musicians,  that  there  are  many  ways  of 
winning  success.  For  violinists  the  virtuosity  of  Paganini 
or  Kubelik  is  one  way;  it  appeals  to  the  public's  love  of 
sensationalism,  of  being  astonished  by  brilliant  and  seem- 
ingly impossible  feats  of  execution. 

A  more  commendable  way,  which  appeals  to  the  pub- 
lic's national  and  patriotic  sentiments,  is  that  of  Edouard 
Remenyi,  the  Hungarian,  and  Ole  Bull,  the  Norwegian. 
Widely  as  their  styles  and  the  music  they  played  differed 
in  some  respects,  they  had  this  in  common  that  the  appeal 
of  their  playing  was  chiefly  to  the  hearts  of  the  hearers. 

Although  Remenyi  was  born  in  Hungary,  we  might 
almost  claim  him  as  an  American,  for  he  was  barely 
twenty  when  he  first  visited  this  country;  it  was  here  that 
he  won  many  of  his  greatest  triumphs;  it  was  American 
life  and  scenery  that  inspired  his  best  essays;  and  he  died 
in  San  Francisco.  He  was  of  Jewish  descent,  his  father's 
name  having  been  Hoffmann,  which  the  son  Hungarian- 
ized  to  Remenyi.  His  coming  to  the  United  States  at  so 
early  an  age  was  for  political  reasons.  In  life  as  in  art  he 
was  always  an  ardent  Hungarian,  and  his  patriotic  fervor 
was  aroused,  in  1848,  by  the  uprising  against  Austria 
organized  under  the  leadership  of  Kossuth.  He  wanted 
to  be  a  soldier,  but  General  Gorgey  would  not  allow  him 
to  go  to  battle  because  he  considered  his  violin  a  mightier 

338 


EDOUARD  REMENYI  339 

weapon  than  the  sword;  so  Remenyi  was  asked  to  en- 
courage the  soldiers  to  action  by  playing  patriotic  battle 
airs,  which  he  did  with  surprising  success.  He  played  not 
only  in  camp,  but  went  from  village  to  village,  arousing 
the  inhabitants  with  the  Rakoczy  march,  with  such  tre- 
mendous efifect  that  the  government  became  alarmed  and 
issued  an  edict  forbidding  his  playing  with  this  purpose, 
under  the  penalty  of  death — surely  one  of  the  grandest 
tributes  on  record  to  the  power  of  music.  He  refused  to 
stop,  but  was  at  last  compelled  to  flee. 

Having  little  money,  he  came  to  America  in  the  steer- 
age. His  first  concert  was  given  at  Niblo's  Garden,  on  Jan- 
uary 19,  1850.  Six  months  later  he  returned  to  Hamburg, 
where  he  made  a  remarkable  discovery,  which  was  noth- 
ing more  nor  less  than — Johannes  Brahms.  Schumann 
is  the  man  who  usually  gets  the  credit  of  having  discovered 
that  composer;  but  to  Remenyi  belongs  the  honor  of  hav- 
ing been  the  first  to  recognize  his  ability  and  to  introduce 
him  (to  Liszt)  as  a  new  genius.  Brahms  was  at  that  time 
giving  lessons  in  Hamburg  for  fifteen  cents  an  hour.  He 
was  sent  as  a  substitute  for  Remenyi's  regular  accompa- 
nist, who  happened  to  be  ill,  and  the  violinist  was  so  much 
impressed  by  his  playing  that  he  engaged  him  at  once.  So 
the  two  travelled  together,  paying  their  way  by  giving 
concerts  at  various  places.  To  Brahms  this  association 
proved  of  incalculable  value;  for  while  Schumann's  procla- 
mation of  him  as  the  new  "musical  Messiah"  called  the 
attention  of  professionals  to  him,  it  was  through  his  Hun- 
garian Dances  that  he  first  came  into  vogue  as  a  com- 
poser; and  for  these  dances  he  was  indebted  to  Remenyi. 

The  account  of  this  affair  given  to  the  world  by  Remenyi, 
after  a  silence  of  twenty  years,  does  not  show  Brahms  in 
a  noble  light.  While  the  two  were  travelling,  Remenyi 
used  to  kill  time  in  the  hotels  at  night  by  playing  and  com- 
posing Hungarian  airs.    These  he  submitted  to  Brahms, 


340  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

in  whose  judgment  he  had  great  confidence.  Great  was 
his  surprise,  in  later  years,  to  find  his  own  melodies,  with 
others  well-known  in  Hungary,  attributed  to  Brahms,  who 
did  not  mention  in  the  score  the  sources  of  his  Hungarian 
Dances.  It  was  for  this  reason  that  the  violinist  never 
played  the  "Brahms"  Hungarian  Dances.  He  even  had 
reason  to  fear  that,  had  he  played  them,  the  public  might 
have  thought,  to  cite  his  own  words,  that  he  was  "not 
playing  them  in  the  right  way,  inasmuch  as  they  have  been 
accustomed  to  hearing  them  given  in  a  style  totally  differ- 
ent from  my  own,  although  I  think  you  will  concede  that 
I  ought  to  be  the  best  judge  of  the  manner  in  which  my 
own  compositions  should  be  performed."  Other  com- 
posers have  appropriated  the  Magyar  airs  of  Remenyi  as 
folk  music  (as  they  have  the  melodies  of  Grieg);  and  Mr. 
Upton  remarks  that  "if  his  Hungarian  compositions  and 
arrangements  could  be  collected  and  carefully  edited  they 
would  prove  an  important  addition  to  the  music  of  that 
nationality."  * 

When  Remenyi  returned  to  Hungary  the  second  time 
(in  1 891;  the  first  time  was  in  i860)  he  was,  his  son  re- 
lates, "greeted  with  a  reception  very  much  like  the  one 
Admiral  Dewey  had  on  his  return  to  America.  I  was  with 
him  then.  Soldiers  lined  the  streets  from  the  depot  to  the 
hotel,  and  my  father  had  to  make  speeches.  I  saw  an 
old  man  at  a  way-station  shake  him  by  the  hand  and  say 
that,  now  he  had  seen  Remenyi,  he  could  die  happy." 
This  enthusiasm  over  him  had  two  sources — remembrance 
of  his  youthful  help  in  the  war,  and  pride  at  the  honor  he 
had  since  shed  on  his  native  country  by  his  art  and  his 
success  in  familiarizing  the  whole  globe  with  Hungarian 

*  Remenyi  never  carried  out  his  intention  of  writing  his  memoirs.  The 
facts  here  referred  to  are  contained  in  the  volume  on  him  prepared  by  G. 
D.  Kelley  and  G.  P.  Upton,  v^^hich  the  authors  modestly  call  "a  skeleton 
of  the  work  that  might  have  been."  It  includes  the  violinist's  letters  and 
essays. 


EDOUARD   REMENYI  341 

melodies  and  the  true  Magyar  way  of  playing  them.  He 
was  the  artistic  globe-trotter  par  excellence.  There  are 
records  of  him  in  Egypt,  Australia,  Japan,  China,  Java, 
the  Philippines,  India,  Ceylon,  Madagascar,  South  Africa, 
and  nearly  every  other  corner  of  the  globe.  There  would 
be  long  silences  regarding  his  whereabouts,  followed  by 
lurid  reports  of  shipwrecks,  capture  by  cannibals,  and 
assassination;  but,  fortunately,  as  in  the  case  of  Mark 
Twain,  the  reports  of  his  death  were  always  "  grossly  exag- 
gerated." 

Every  one  has  read  of  how  he  played  one  day  on  the  top 
of  the  Pyramid  of  Cheops.  In  India  he  played  for  native 
princes,  and  heard  their  musicians  in  return.  In  America 
he  appeared  at  symphony  concerts  with  Anton  Seidl,  but 
that  did  not  prevent  him  from  subsequently  playing  med- 
leys of  American  airs  at  Colorado  mining-camps.  On  one 
of  these  occasions,  when  he  was  completely  exhausted, 
after  repeating  his  patriotic  medley  three  times,  the  audi- 
ence became  a  howling  mob  demanding  more,  standing  on 
stairs,  and  demolishing  the  furniture.  His  last  appearance 
was  at  the  Orpheum  Theatre  in  San  Francisco,  where 
there  were  similar  outbreaks  of  frenzied  enthusiasm.  They 
proved  too  much  for  him.  His  physician  had  advised  him 
not  to  play,  but  he  disregarded  the  warning.  He  had  just 
begun  a  new  piece  when  he  fell  forward,  unconscious,  thus 
fulfilling  his  own  prediction  to  a  friend:  *'I  shall  die 
fiddling." 

If  we  inquire  into  the  cause  of  Remenyi's  remarkable 
power  over  vaudeville  audiences  on  the  one  hand,  and 
such  great  connoisseurs  on  the  other  as  Anton  Seidl  and 
Carl  Schurz  (who,  when  Minister  of  the  Interior,  once  pre- 
sented him  with  a  watch,  the  case  of  which  was  inlaid  with 
twenty-florin  gold  pieces  of  Kossuth's  money  of  1848),  we 
shall,  perhaps,  find  it  chiefly  in  the  facts  that  to  him  music 
was  an  actuality,  not  a  mere  accomplishment,  and  that  he 


342  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

had  a  unique  and  fascinating  personality.  In  the  war  of 
1848  he  learned  to  know  the  power  of  music  as  something 
infinitely  more  than  a  mere  diversion;  and  such  it  re- 
mained to  him  all  his  life.  "Art  possesses  me  entirely," 
he  wrote  in  one  of  his  brief  essays.  "With  me  it  is  not  an^ 
.agreeable  pastime;  it  is  my  life,  my  blood,  my  everything." 
And  he  played  like  one  of  whom  this  was  true.  How  ut- 
terly unconventional  his  performance  was  we  realize  from 
such  remarks  by  himself,  his  friends,  and  the  critics,  as 
these:  "I  always  improvise  my  variations  before  the 
audience,  never  playing  them  twice  alike,  and,  before  com- 
mencing to  play,  generally  commend  myself  to  the  good- 
will and  charity  of  some  musical  guardian  angel  not  to 
leave  me  in  the  lurch."  ''Remenyi  was  impatient  of  any 
break  in  the  stillness  of  a  room  in  which  he  was  playing, 
and  often  he  would  wander  back  and  forth,  his  instrument 
in  hand,  his  music  growing  fainter  and  fainter,  as  he  moved 
farther  away,  and  swelling  as  he  returned,  perhaps,  to  lean 
against  a  table  or  a  chair,  playing  with  eyes  all  but  closed." 
Apparently  absent-minded,  "he  rarely  seems  to  realize 
that  an  audience  is  in  front  of  him  until  he  is  awakened  as 
from  a  dream  by  the  applause. 

With  his  complete  tonsure,  he  looked  so  much  like  a 
priest  that  once,  at  a  Colorado  camp,  a  miner  called  out: 
"  Hello,  old  man !  give  us  your  blessing  first ! "  He  was  as 
abstemious  as  an  anchorite.  X^  ^^s  vegetarian  diet  he 
attributed  his  remarkable  vigor,  firmness  of  muscle,  and 
strength  of  arm.  This,  he  affirmed,  enabled  him  to  prac- 
tise so  many  hours  and  to  endure  so  much. 

Had  Remenyi's  intellectuality  been  on  a  par  with  his 
technic  and  his  power  of  appealing  to  the  emotions,  he 
might  have  been  called  the  Liszt  of  the  violin.  Liszt  ad- 
mired him  greatly.  In  his  book  on  The  Hungarian  Gyp- 
sies and  Their  Music  he  says  he  never  had  heard  him 
without  experiencing  an  emotion  which  revived  the  recol- 


OLE  BULL  343 

lection  left  by  Bihary,  the  greatest  of  the  gypsy  violinists. 
"Remenyi,"  he  adds,  "is  gifted  with  a  vivacious,  generous 
disposition  which  rebels  against  monotony,  and  whose 
originality  shows  through  everything  and  in  spite  of  every- 
thing. This  is  a  token  of  the  vitality  of  his  talent  and  in- 
sures him  a  special  place  in  the  gallery  of  men  who  have 
given  new  life  to  a  deserving  branch  of  art." 

Ole  Bull 

The  annals  of  music  in  America  contain  the  names  of 
three  artists  who,  more  than  any  others,  stirred  the  public 
throughout  the  country  to  frenzied  outbursts  of  enthusi- 
asm. Two  of  these — Jenny  Lind  and  Paderewski — have 
already  been  treated  of  in  this  volume.  The  third  was 
Ole  Bull,  the  Norwegian  violinist.  "He  had  a  wonderful 
hold  over  a  miscellaneous  audience,"  writes  Arthur  M. 
Abell,  "  and  people  went  to  hear  Ole  Bull  who  did  not  care 
for  music  and  who  otherwise  never  attended  concerts.  A 
writer  in  an  early  American  magazine  in  1845,  when  the 
poet-violinist  was  making  his  first  tour  of  our  country, 
wrote:  'Ole  Bull  is  going  about  the  country  converting 
more  people  to  the  violin  than  all  our  ministers  of  the 
Gospel  combined  are  converting  to  Christianity.'  ...  In 
later  years,  after  his  fame  had  penetrated  to  every  nook 
and  corner  of  the  Union,  his  coming  was  looked  upon  as 
an  event  of  the  greatest  importance;  people  would  drive 
in  from  the  country  with  ox  carts  to  hear  him,  and  the 
enthusiasm  was  unparalleled.  During  his  last  tour,  in 
1878-9,  an  Ole  Bull  concert  caused  as  much  excitement 
as  a  political  meeting." 

Sara  Bull,  in  her  Ole  Bull:  A  Memoir,  gives  figures 
which,  more  eloquently  than  anything  else,  attest  his 
enormous  popularity.  In  sixteen  months'  time  he  once 
gave  274  concerts  in  the  United  Kingdom.     During  his  first 


344  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

American  tour  he  travelled  more  than  icx3,ooo  miles  in  the 
United  States,  Canada,  and  the  West  Indies,  giving  about 
200  concerts,  some  of  which  netted  him  over  $3,000.  His 
profits  amounted  to  $100,000,  of  which  he  contributed 
more  than  $20,000  to  charitable  institutions.  In  European 
cities  his  audiences  were  equally  large.  From  Christiania 
he  wrote  in  1841:  "They  are  fighting  like  wolves  for 
seats."  In  Stockholm  he  earned  as  much  as  $5,000  at 
a  single  concert.  In  St.  Petersburg  his  audiences  never 
numbered  less  than  5,000  people,  and  in  Vienna  he  gave 
sixteen  concerts  in  a  few  weeks. 

Like  Jenny  Lind  and  Paderewski,  Ole  Bull  had  the 
power  of  making  the  unmusical  delight  in  music.  At  the 
same  time,  his  playing  appealed  no  less  powerfully  to  the 
connoisseurs.  Liszt  greatly  admired  his  art  and  gave  con- 
certs with  him,  at  some  of  which  they  played  Beethoven's 
Kreutzer  Sonata.  The  more  conservative  Mendelssohn 
took  pleasure  in  playing  the  piano  part  of  the  same  sonata 
with  the  Norwegian.  Joachim,  more  severely  classical 
than  Mendelssohn,  once  said  to  Bjomstjeme  Bjornson: 
"No  artist  in  our  time  has  possessed  Ole  Bull's  poetic 
power."  To  Arthur  Abell  he  said  he  had  "never  heard 
any  violinist  play  simple  melodies  so  touchingly,  with  so 
much  feeling."  In  its  criticism  of  his  first  concert  in 
London,  the  Times  declared  that  nearly  all  the  distinguished 
members  of  the  profession  then  in  town  were  in  the  hall 
and  applauded  most  cordially. 

Because  of  his  success  with  the  masses,  there  were,  never- 
theless, not  wanting  envious  and  stupid  professionals  who 
accused  him  of  charlatanry.  The  English  critic  just 
quoted  declared,  however,  that  there  was  "not  an  atom  of 
charlatanism"  in  his  performance;  "  there  was  no  trick,  no 
violent  gesture,  nor  any  approach  to  the  ad  captandum 
school";  and  the  eminent  French  critic,  Jules  Janin, 
wrote:    "C'est  un  honnete  jeune  homme  sans  charlatan- 


OLE  BULL  345 

isme,  qui  ignore  le  grand  art  Italien  de  preparer  un 
succ^s  de  longue  main."  In  America,  Ole  Bull  wrote  and 
played  a  piece  called  Niagara,  concerning  which  N,  P. 
Willis  wrote:  "It  must  be  said  that  Ole  Bull  has,  genius- 
like, refused  to  misinterpret  the  voice  within  him — refused 
to  play  the  charlatan,  and  'bring  the  house  down' — as  he 
might  well  have  done  by  any  kind  of  ^uUermosty  jrom  the 
drums  and  trumpets  oj  the  orchestra.'''' 

Why  the  pedants  looked  on  him  as  a  charlatan  was  ex- 
plained by  the  New  York  Tribune:  "  Like  every  man  of 
remarkable  and  pronounced  genius,  he  is  a  phenomenon. 
He  has  his  own  standards;  he  makes  his  own  rules.  It  is 
useless  to  pursue  him  with  the  traditional  rules.  His 
orbit  will  not  be  prescribed  or  prophesied,  for  it  is  eccen- 
tric. Ole  Bull  stands  in  direct  opposition  to  the  classical 
school,  of  which  the  peculiarity  is  to  subdue  the  artist  to 
the  music.  He  is  essentially  romantic.  His  performance, 
beyond  any  we  have  ever  heard,  is  picturesque.  He  uses 
music  as  color,  and  it  matters  nothing  to  him  if  the  treat- 
ment be  more  or  less  elaborate  or  rhythmical  or  detailed, 
if  it  succeed  in  striking  the  hearer  with  the  vivid  impression 
sought.  It  is  unavoidable,  therefore,  that  he  is  called  a 
charlatan.  It  is  natural  that  the  classical  artists  are 
amazed  at  this  bold  buccaneer,  roving  the  great  sea  of 
musical  approbation  and  capturing  the  costliest  prizes  of 
applause." 

The  irregularity  which  displeased  the  pedants  and 
classicists  was  the  very  thing  that  made  the  masses — and 
the  men  of  genius — delight  in  the  art  of  Ole  Bull.  Per- 
sonality is  essential  to  success  in  music,  and  the  more  of 
^personality  —  individuality — an  artist  has,  the  more  he 
must  leave  the  beaten  path.  It  was  the  beaten  path  that 
""displeased  Bull  when,  as  a  youth,  he  travelled  500  miles  to 
hear  Spohr  play  with  other  German  musicians  at  a  festival. 
He  was  so  disillusioned  that  he  came  near  giving  up  music 


346  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

and  returning  to  his  college  studies.  Luckily  he  did  not 
do  so,  but  went  to  Paris.  There  he  heard,  among  others, 
Paganini,  whose  amazing  skill  made  on  him  the  same  im- 
pression it  did  on  Liszt.  Fired  with  ambition,  he  applied 
himself  assiduously  to  the  task  of  equalling  the  Italian 
wizard,  and  in  the  opinion  of  many  he  quite  succeeded. 
But  whereas  Paganini  relied  chiefly  on  his  ability  to  dazzle. 
Bull  made  technic  a  means  to  an  end  and  placed  his  chief 
reliance  in  the  infinitely  higher  art  of  moving  his  hearers 
by  the  soulful  rendering  of  simple  melodies. 

At  the  very  beginning  of  his  career  he  was  severely 
criticised  in  a  Milan  journal.  Instead  of  taking  this  amiss, 
he  called  on  the  critic  and  said:  "It  is  not  enough  to  tell 
me  my  faults,  you  must  tell  me  how  to  rid  myself  of  them." 
The  journahst  replied:  "You  have  the  spirit  of  a  true 
artist.  I  shall  introduce  you  to  a  singing-master.  It  is  in 
the  art  of  song  that  you  will  find  the  key  to  the  beauties  of 
music  in  general  and  the  hidden  capacities  of  the  violin 
in  particular;  for  the  violin  most  resembles  the  human 
voice." 

That  same  evening  he  took  the  young  violinist  to  an 
aged  singer  who  knew  the  traditions  of  the  great  masters 
and  artists.  "Ole  Bull  used  to  say,"  we  read  in  his  wife's 
Memoir,  "that  never  in  his  life  had  he  been  so  impressed 
as  by  this  old  singer  whose  voice  was  broken.  He  found 
in  his  delivery  and  style  the  clew  to  the  power  which  he  had 
admired  in  the  great  artists.  Now  to  him  also  was  the 
secret  revealed.  He  at  once  became  a  pupil,  devoting  him- 
self to  continuous  study  and  practice  for  six  months  under 
the  guidance  of  able  masters,  throwing  his  whole  heart  and 
soul  into  his  work.  From  this  ardent  study,  assisted  by 
eminent  teachers  of  Italian  song,  came  his  command  of 
melody,  which  enabled  him  to  reproduce  with  their  true 
native  character  the  most  delicate  and  varied  modifications 
of  foreign  music  that  he  met  with — Italian,  Spanish,  Irish, 


OLE  BULL  347 

Arabian,  Hungarian,  as  well  as  the  national  songs  of  his 
own  country." 

It  was  by  his  inspired  playing  of  these  Norwegian  folk 
tunes  that  he  won  many  of  his  greatest  triumphs.  The 
authors  of  folk  songs  are  unknown  to  fame,  but  many  of 
these  melodies  are  so  beautiful  that  the  greatest  composers 
have  been  glad  to  borrow  and  incorporate  them  in  their 
masterworks.  Bull's  arrangements  of  Norwegian  melo- 
dies betray  a  master  hand,  and  he  played  them  as  no  one 
but  himself  (or  Grieg,  had  be  been  a  violinist)  could  have 
played  them.  In  the  music  he  made  were  reflected  the 
experiences  of  his  boyhood.  As  a  child  he  had  a  passion 
for  two  things — music  and  nature.  He  was  never  so  happy 
as  when  his  grandmother  told  him  ghost  stories  and  sang 
the  wild  songs  of  the  peasantry.  "He  was  very  fond  of 
composing  original  melodies,  and  in  these  he  took  especial 
pains  to  imitate  the  voices  of  nature:  the  wind  in  the  trees, 
the  rustle  of  the  leaves,  the  call  of  birds,  the  babble  of 
brooks,  the  roar  of  water-falls,  and  the  weird  sounds  heard 
among  his  native  mountains."  He  and  his  six  brothers 
used  to  select  sea-shells  of  different  tones  to  blow  upon, 
and  they  experimented  until  they  succeeded  in  producing 
pleasing  musical  effects.  When  he  got  his  violin  he  some- 
times played  almost  incessantly  night  and  day,  hardly 
eating  or  sleeping  in  the  meantime. 

For  the  student  who  would  like  to  know  the  secrets  of 
Ole  Bull's  success  the  most  important  of  the  details  related 
by  his  wife  concerning  his  boyhood  is  a  ghost  story.  Ole 
used  to  seek  out  the  most  solitary  places^  where  he  could 
sit  and  play  undisturbed.  Soon  alarming  rumors  about 
ghosts,  trolls,  and  other  supernatural  beings  went  abroad 
at  Valestrand.  The  peasants  whispered  that  fiddle  strains 
had  been  heard  at  most  unseasonable  hours  from  the  very 
mountains.  At  last  some  of  the  men  ventured  timorously 
to  investigate.  Taking  the  sounds  as  a  guide,  they  came  to 


348  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

the  bottom  of  a  "giant's  caldron,"  and  there  came  across 
the  boy  fiddhng  weird  dances  and  marches. 

What  does  this  httle  story  teach  ?  It  teaches  the  vastly 
important  lesson  that  a  young  violinist  likely  to  make  his 
mark  will,  like  little  Ole,  want  to  play  for  his  own  pleasure 
and  not  for  others.  The  ordinary  kind  of  fiddler  is  eager 
chiefly  to  show  what  a  brilliant  player  he  is.  That  kind 
of  a  musician  never  reaches  the  first  rank.  He  loves  him- 
self more  than  he  loves  the  Muse  of  music,  and  the  Muse 
resents  that. 


XXII 
SPOHR  AND  JOACHIM 

Louis  Spohr 

One  interesting  incident  in  Ole  Bull's  career  to  which 
no  reference  is  made  in  the  foregoing  chapter  was  his 
attempt  to  study  with  Louis  Spohr;  but  that  eminent 
German  violinist  refused  to  give  lessons  to  the  nineteen- 
year-old  untrained  and  untamed  Norwegian. 

"My  music  is  not  likely  to  appeal  to  the  public  and  to 
arouse  the  enthusiasm  of  the  masses." 

In  that  sentence  the  academic,  classical  Spohr  indicates, 
in  his  autobiography,  the  point  wherein  he  chiefly  differs 
from  Ole  Bull  and  the  other  violinists  considered  in  the 
foregoing  pages.  And  yet  he  was  a  most  successful  musi- 
cian— successful  as  player,  as  conductor,  as  composer,  as 
teacher.  For  decades,  says  the  historian  Riemann,  "  Spohr 
was  the  most  prominent  of  Germany's  musical  notabili- 
ties." The  chief  ambition  of  the  directors  of  music  festi- 
vals was  to  secure  him  as  soloist  and  as  conductor  of  his 
own  very  popular  works. 

It  was  to  cultivated  musicians  and  auditors  that  Spohr 
made  his  principal  appeal.  He  was  born  (1784)  two  years 
after  Paganini,  and  repeatedly  heard  that  Italian  magician, 
but  was  not  particularly  impressed  with  his  light,  piquant 
effects  of  bowing.  Brilliant  passages  abound  in  his  own 
violin  concertos,  but  they  are  usually  made  an  integral 
part  of  the  composition  instead  of  being  treated  as  mere 

349 


350  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

embroideries.  His  large  fingers  had  amazing  strength, 
and  he  executed  with  the  greatest  ease  wide  stretches  and 
difficult  double-stops.  His  bodily  vigor  and  robust  health 
were  important  aids  to  success.  They  enabled  him,  in  his 
student  days,  to  practise  ten  hours  a  day  and  later  in  life 
to  endure  the  interminable  journeys  on  jolting  stage- 
coaches to  which  popular  soloists  were  condemned  in  his 
day. 

All  the  musical  countries  of  Europe  were  visited  by  him, 
but  he  was  not  equally  successful  in  all.  The  French 
found  him  too  serious  and  somewhat  dull.  In  Italy  there 
were  some  who  thought  he  brought  back  the  large  dignified 
manner  of  violin  playing  cultivated  in  former  times  by 
their  own  Pugnani  and  Tartini;  but  most  of  the  Italians 
preferred  the  new  Paganini  style,  and  Spohr  found  so  little 
popular  support  on  his  Italian  tour  of  1815-16  that  he  had 
to  borrow  money  in  Switzerland  to  pay  for  his  return  to 
Germany. 

In  England  he  had  the  greatest  financial  success  of  his 
life — like  most  Continental  artists  before  America  began 
to  be  visited  by  them.  There,  as  in  Germany,  he  was 
admired  particularly  for  the  way  in  which  he  made  the 
instrument  sing  slow  melodies.  He  humanized  tke  violin, 
and  his  tone,  also,  was  almost  as  big  as  a  singer's.  '*  The 
soul  he  breathes  into  his  playing,  the  flight  of  his  fantasy, 
the  fire,  the  tenderness,  the  depth  of  his  feeling,  his  fine 
taste  and  his  grasping  of  the  spirit  of  widely  different  com- 
positions and  his  ability  to  reproduce  each  work  in  the 
spirit  of  the  composer — these  things  stamp  him  the  true 
artist,"  wrote  a  prominent  German  critic  of  his  day. 

Although  Spohr's  technical  skill  was  second  only  to 
Paganini 's,  he  belonged,  as  the  foregoing  shows,  to  the 
class  of  interpreters  rather  than  to  that  of  virtuosos.  He 
abhorred  the  trickery  and  charlatanry  of  which  Paganini 
often  was  guilty.    His  success  was  aided  by  his  gentlemanly 


JOSEPH   JOACHIM  351 

and  thoroughly  artistic  personality.  Like  Beethoven  and 
Liszt,  he  had  a  way,  from  his  youth  up,  of  making  mem- 
bers of  the  nobility  understand  that  men  of  genius  also  are 
aristocrats.  In  London,  the  Dukes  of  Sussex  and  Clar- 
ence treated  him  and  his  wife  with  the  same  distinction  as 
the  invited  guests  of  the  court  circle. 

Joseph  Joachim 

It  was  unfortunate  for  Spohr  that  he  was  overrated  as  a 
composer.  The  pendulum  in  such  a  case  usually  swings 
too  far  the  other  way.  Although  he  trained  nearly  two 
hundred  pupils,  none  of  them  succeeded  in  maintaining 
the  public's  interest  in  his  concertos.  At  this  crisis  Joseph 
Joachim  came  to  the  rescue.  The  Spohr  concertos  were 
among  his  favorite  concert  numbers,  and,  thanks  to  him 
chiefly,  Spohr's  life  as  a  composer  was  maintained  several 
decades  after  his  body  was  laid  in  the  grave. 

It  was  Hungary  that  gave  to  the  world  not  only  Remenyi 
but  Joachim,  who  became  known  as  the  "king  of  violin- 
ists," as  the  Hungarian  Liszt  was  known  as  the  "king  of 
pianists." 

Joachim's  parents  were  of  the  Jewish  persuasion,  but  he 
embraced  the  Christian  religion  in  1854.  Though  not  born 
at  Pesth,  the  family  moved  to  that  city  in  1833,  when  he 
was  only  two  years  old,  and  he  thus  had  the  advantage  of 
being  educated  in  the  Hungarian  metropolis.  Musically, 
however,  this  came  near  being  a  calamity.  It  so  happened 
that  the  boy's  first  teacher  paid  so  little  attention  to  his 
bowing  that  when  he  subsequently  was  taken  to  Georg 
Hellmesberger,  that  eminent  expert  found  his  bowing  so 
stiff  that  he  declared  he  would  never  amount  to  anything 
as  a  player;  and  father  Joachim  was  so  much  impressed 
by  this  verdict  that  he  made  up  his  mind  to  give  up  the 
idea  of  a  musical  career  for  his  son. 


352  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

Fortunately,  at  this  moment,  the  eminent  violinist  Ernst 
appeared  on  the  scene.  He  divined  little  Joseph's  excep- 
tional musical  gifts  and  advised  that  he  should  be  placed 
with  Joseph  Bohm,  another  noted  master  of  the  violin  and 
teacher.  Bohm  took  him  into  his  own  house  and  taught 
him  for  three  years.  Joachim's  biographer,  Andreas 
Moser  (who  was  his  assistant  for  more  than  a  decade  at 
the  Berlin  Academy  of  Music),  admits  frankly  that  Joa- 
chim's subsequent  ^*  great  skill  in  imparting  a  special 
physiognomy  to  each  manner  of  bowing,  the  capacity  of 
calmly  spinning  a  long  tone  with  his  bow,  the  pithiness  of 
his  half-bow,  his  spiccato  in  all  nuances  'from  snow  and 
rain  to  hail,'  the  equalized  tone-production  in  all  parts  of 
the  finger-board,  in  short,  all  the  peculiarities  which  adorn 
Joachim's  method  of  playing  the  violin,  have  their  root  in 
the  excellent  method  of  Bohm.  And  Joachim  simply  exer- 
cises the  duty  of  loyalty  and  gratitude  in  repeating  over  and 
over  again  that  he  owes  to  his  Viennese  teacher  everything 
he  learned  about  playing  the  violin." 

So  far  as  technical  execution  is  concerned,  Joseph  Joa- 
chim was  a  finished  artist  when  he  left  Bohm  to  go  to 
Leipsic,  in  1843,  to  enter  the  newly  founded  conservatory. 
He  played  for  Mendelssohn,  who  was  so  much  impressed 
by  the  skill  of  the  twelve-year-old  boy  that  he  sent  to  his 
guardians  a  report  containing  advice,  in  its  second  part, 
which  all  young  students  of  the  violin — or  other  instru- 
ments— should  take  to  heart: 

"  The  Posaunenengel  has  no  more  need  of  a  conservatory 
for  his  instrument,  nor,  in  fact,  of  any  teacher  in  violin 
playing.  He  may  confidently  work  on  by  himself,  and 
from  time  to  time  play  for  David,  to  get  his  advice  and 
criticism.  For  the  rest,  I  shall  myself  frequently  and  regu- 
larly play  with  the  boy  and  be  his  musical  adviser.  At  the 
same  time  he  did  his  exercises  in  harmony  so  correctly 
that  I  urgently  advise  him  to  continue  this  branch  with 


JOSEPH   JOACHIM  353 

Hauptmann,  in  order  that  he  may  learn  everything  that 
later  may  and  must  be  expected  of  a  genuine  artist.  By 
far  the  greatest  importance  attaches,  however,  to  the 
boy's  getting  a  thorough  education  in  scientific  branches, 
and  I  myself  will  see  that  this  is  given  to  him  by  qualified 
teachers." 

Mendelssohn  himself  was  not  only  a  thoroughly  well- 
educated  gentleman,  but  he  appreciated  the  growing  value 
of  general  culture  to  a  musician.  When  he  discovered, 
somewhat  later,  that  Joachim  was  a  reader  of  good  books 
and  could  quote  from  them,  his  interest  in  him  became 
more  cordial  still.  He  paved  the  way  to  his  success  in 
London,  making  it  clear  to  the  directors  of  the  Philhar- 
monic Society  that  this  boy  was  not  an  ordinary  prodigy, 
but  a  real  artist  who  simply  happened  to  be  still  very  young. 

His  object  in  having  him  appear  at  that  early  age  in 
England  was  to  win  for  him  the  good-will  of  music  lovers. 
That  object  having  been  achieved,  Mendelssohn  gave  his 
guardians  some  further  advice,  invaluable  to  all  who  have 
charge  of  boys  or  girls  whose  talent  develops  prematurely: 

"I  now  wish  that  he  may  return  soon,  to  rest  far  from 
all  contact  with  public  music  life.  He  ought  to  devote  the 
next  two  or  three  years  entirely  to  the  education  of  his 
mind,  from  every  point  of  view,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
train  himself  in  all  branches  of  his  art  in  which  he  still  is 
deficient,  without  neglecting  what  he  has  already  attained. 
He  should  compose  diligently,  and  more  diligently  still  go 
walking  and  tend  to  his  bodily  development,  so  that  he 
may  be  three  years  hence  as  healthy  a  youth  in  body  and 
mind  as  he  is  now  as  a  boy.  Without  complete  rest  I  con- 
sider that  impossible." 

It  is  for  lack  of  a  Mendelssohn  to  give  them  such  advice 
that  many  a  child  prodigy  of  promise  has  come  to  grief. 
Josef  Hofmann  came  near  sharing  this  fate;  he  was  res- 
cued just  in  time  through  the  generosity  of  an  American 


354  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

admirer,  and  Hofmann,  instead  of  collapsing  in  his  child- 
hood, grew  up  to  be  one  of  the  leading  artists  of  his  time, 
as  Joachim  did  of  his. 

At  the  age  of  sixteen,  Joachim  was  already  a  teacher 
at  the  Leipsic  Conservatory,  being  considerably  younger 
than  some  of  his  pupils.  Three  years  later  he  accepted  an 
offer  from  Liszt  to  come  to  Weimar  and  be  concert-master 
of  the  opera  of  that  town,  at  which  Liszt  was  bringing  out 
Lohengrin  and  many  other  works  of  young  and  untried 
composers.  During  the  three  years  he  was  associated  with 
Liszt  he  profited,  as  a  matter  of  course,  greatly,  like  all 
those  who  were  intimates  of  that  wonderful  man;  but  he 
was  not  in  sympathy  with  Liszt's  music,  or  with  that  of 
Wagner,  or  Berlioz,  and  Liszt's  other  modern  idols.  His 
own  idol  was  Brahms,  and  to  the  furtherance  of  his  art 
and  that  of  the  old  classical  masters,  as  well  as  of  the  mod- 
ern romanticists,  Schubert,  Mendelssohn,  and  Schumann, 
he  devoted  his  skill  as  a  violinist  and  his  influence  as  a 
teacher,  which  he  exercised,  to  the  considerable  detriment 
of  modern  music  of  the  kinds  he  disliked,  during  the  four 
decades  of  his  directorship  of  the  Academy  of  Music  in 
Berlin. 

Joachim  owed  his  success  to  innate  talent  and  to  the 
academic  thoroughness  of  his  knowledge.  As  a  matter  of 
course,  he  scorned  to  make  the  least  use  of  his  great  tech- 
nical skill  to  dazzle  his  hearers.  The  music  he  chiefly 
played — Beethoven,  Bach,  Brahms — did  not  appeal  to 
such  hearers  anyway.  To  him  Brahms  owes  more  of  his 
fame  in  Germany,  and  still  more  in  England,  than  to  all 
other  musicians  combined.  It  is  a  wonderful  example, 
showing  what  a  missionary  can  do  with  zeal  and  perse- 
verance. 

As  a  player,  Joachim  was  often  compared  to  Hans  von 
Billow;  his  champions  maintain,  however,  that  he  never 
revealed,  as  Biilow  so  often  did,  a  didactic  purpose  in  his 


JOSEPH   JOACHIM  355 

public  playing,  but  confined  his  teaching  to  the  class-room. 
It  is  admitted  by  so  ardent  an  admirer  of  his  as  Fuller 
Maitland  that  "  his  tone  was  always  distinguished  by  virile 
energy  rather  than  by  voluptuous  roundness."  Another 
admirer,  Dr.  Hanslick,  conceded  with  reference  to  Joa- 
chim's specialty  —  the  Beethoven  concerto — that  Vieux- 
temps  played  it  more  brilliantly,  with  more  animation, 
with  a  more  overwhelming  temperament,  for  the  lack  of 
which  qualities,  however,  Joachim  atoned  by  greater 
depth  arid  ethical  power.  Nor  did  Hanslick  deny  that 
Joachim  missed  many  of  the  finer,  more  touching  details; 
and  he  adds:  "There  were  places  in  Beethoven's  work 
which  would  have  appealed  more  directly  to  the  heart  as 
played  by  the  subtle,  sensitive  Hellmesberger  than  they 
did  as  played  with  the  unyielding  Roman  seriousness  of 
Joachim." 

Joachim's  playing,  in  a  word,  was  deficient  in  sensuous 
richness  and  emotional  warmth.  He  did  not  move  to  tears. 
"He  can  make  me  cry  all  he  chooses,"  wrote  Amy  Fay  of 
Liszt;  but,  she  adds,  "Joachim,  whom  I  think  divine, 
never  moved  me."  His  strength  was  on  the  intellectual 
side  of  art,  and  that  is  why  he  became  even  more  famous 
as  a  quartet  player  than  as  a  soloist.  In  chamber  music 
he  was  an  unrivalled  leader;  as  a  soloist  he  has  had  many 
equals  and  some  superiors.  He  did  not  deserve  the  epithet 
"king  of  violinists." 

Nor  did  he  create,  as  is  commonly  supposed,  a  new 
"school"  of  violin  playing.  His  official  and  "inspired" 
biographer,  Moser,  himself  takes  pains  (second  edition, 
p.  219),  to  demolish  this  error;  he  points  out  that  the  so- 
called  "Joachim  School"  is  simply  a  compound  of  the 
best  Italian,  German,  and  French  traditions.  He  also  gives 
a  list  of  Joachim's  pupils ;  in  it  are  the  names  of  ten  wom- 
en, four  of  whom — Dora  Becker,  Eleonore  Jackson,  Ger- 
aldine  Morgan,  and  Maud  Powell — are  American. 


356  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

When  the  sixteenth  anniversary  of  Joachim's  entry  into 
pubhc  Hfe  was  celebrated  in  Berhn,  ii6  of  his  violin  and 
viola  pupils,  past  and  present,  and  24  violoncellists  who 
had  attended  his  ensemble  classes,  took  part  in  a  concert 
given  in  his  honor.* 

*  It  was  hoped  that  Joachim  would  follow  the  example  of  Spohr, 
Baillot,  De  Beriot,  David,  and  other  great  violin  masters  and  write  a 
method  of  instruction.  He  abstained,  partly  because  he  had  never  given 
elementary  lessons.  His  assistant,  Moser,  however,  has  performed  this 
task  in  the  spirit  of  his  master.  Four  notable  points  in  this  work  (of 
which  there  is  an  edition  with  English  text  may  be  referred  to:  (i)  ex- 
pression and  phrasing  are  taught  at  an  early  stage,  and  use  is  made,  for 
this  purpose,  of  folk  songs  among  the  exercises;  (2)  the  advice  is  given 
that  lessons  should  begin  in  the  eighth  to  the  tenth  year;  (3)  teachers  are 
impressed  with  the  importance  of  letting  the  youngest  pupils  play  on 
smaller  instruments,  suited  to  their  hands;  (4)  students  are  urged  to  sing 
every  melody  before  they  play  it — or,  in  default  of  a  voice,  to  whistle  it — 
but  whistling  is  an  abomination  which  nothing  can  justify. 


XXIII 
WILHELMJ  AND  KREISLER 

August  Wilhelmj 

"  Is  it  possible  that  there  can  be  the  least  hesitation  con- 
cerning your  boy's  career  ?  He  is  a  born  musician.  He  is 
so  entirely  predestined  for  the  violin,  that  if  the  instrument 
did  not  already  exist  it  would  have  to  be  invented  for 
him." 

It  was  Franz  Liszt  who  gave  this  verdict  when  he  heard 
August  Wilhelmj,  a  youth  of  fifteen,  play  for  him  at  Wei- 
mar. August's  father  wanted  him  to  become  a  lawyer, 
but  the  boy  was  eager  to  be  a  musician,  and  at  his  urgent 
request  the  father  promised  to  let  him  have  his  way,  pro- 
viding that  some  high  authority  would  testify  to  his  chances 
of  success.  Liszt's  enthusiastic  endorsement  settled  the 
matter. 

A  few  days  later  Liszt  took  August  to  Leipsic  and  placed 
him  in  charge  of  the  great  violinist  David,  whose  favorite 
pupil  he  soon  became.  "It  is  a  delight  to  listen  to  him," 
David  used  to  say;  "difficulties  do  not  exist  for  him." 
When  David  published  his  Violin  School  he  took  a  por- 
trait of  Wilhelmj  for  the  vignette,  which  represents  the 
picture  of  an  ideal  violinist.* 

Liszt  and  David  were  not  the  first  to  go  into  raptures 
over  Wilhelmj 's  playing.  When  he  was  only  seven  years 
old,  Henriette  Sontag  heard  him  at  Wiesbaden,  and  he 
played  with  such  brilliant  execution  that  she  kissed  him 

*  The  Musical  Times.     London,  June,  1901. 
357 


358  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

and  exclaimed:  "Some  day  you  will  be  the  German 
Paganini." 

Artists  have  found  it  advantageous  to  shorten  their 
names,  leaving  out  the  middle  one.  Wilhelmj  had  to  leave 
out  four  middle  ones,  his  full-name  having  been  August 
Emil  Daniel  Ferdinand  Victor  Wilhelmj  (the  j  is  pro- 
nounced ee).  His  father  was  also  an  excellent  violinist,  as 
well  as  a  famous  grower  of  Rhine  wines.  He  still  played 
his  instrument  daily  at  the  age  of  ninety.  The  mother  was 
musical,  too,  having  been  a  pupil  of  Chopin.  Their  boy 
made  his  first  public  appearance  in  1854,  and  two  years 
later,  when  he  was  eleven  years  old,  he  created  a  sensation 
at  a  concert  in  Wiesbaden.  Then  came  the  visit  to  Liszt 
and  the  Leipsic  studies  under  David,  which  lasted  from 
1 86 1  to  1864.  In  1862  he  successfully  ran  the  gantlet  of 
German  criticism  by  playing  at  a  Gewandhaus  concert  the 
Hungarian  concerto  of  Joachim. 

It  was  through  the  influence  of  Jenny  Lind  that  he  made 
his  first  appearance  in  London,  in  1866,  after  he  had 
toured  in  Switzerland  and  Holland.  "A  greater  success 
could  not  have  been  possibly  achieved,"  was  the  journal- 
istic report.  In  Paris  the  saying  was:  "Inconnu  hier,  le 
voila  cd^bre  aujourd'hui."  Italy  went  into  raptures;  so 
did  Russia.  In  St.  Petersburg,  Berlioz  attended  one  of  his 
concerts,  and  exclaimed:  "Never  before  have  I  heard  a 
violinist  with  a  tone  so  grand,  so  enchanting,  and  so  noble 
as  that  of  August  Wilhelmj." 

The  finest  feather  in  his  cap  was  the  enthusiasm  of 
Richard  Wagner.  When  Wagner  made  preparations  for 
his  first  Bayreuth  Festival,  he  searched  all  Europe  for  the 
best  singers  and  players.  Hans  Richter  was  invited  to  be 
the  conductor,  and  to  Wilhelmj  fell  the  honor  of  being 
engaged  as  concert-master — that  is,  leader  of  the  violins  in 
the  select  orchestra.  It  was  during  the  rehearsals  for  this 
festival  that  I  first  saw  Wilhelmj  driving  up  to  the  theatre 


AUGUST  WILHELMJ  359 

with  Wagner.  And  how  his  intensely  beautiful  tone  rose 
here  and  there  above  that  of  the  other  players,  first-class 
though  they  were — like  a  great  prima  donna's  voice  in  an 
operatic  ensemble!  The  players  themselves  were  so  en- 
thusiastic over  his  example  and  achievements  that  they 
sent  him  at  the  conclusion  an  address  of  thanks. 

The  volume  of  Wagner's  letters  to  the  singers  and  play- 
ers who  aided  him  at  his  festivals  *  includes  fourteen  to 
Wilhelmj,  discussing  details  regarding  orchestral  matters. 
The  most  important  of  these  letters  is  one  in  which  Wagner 
says:  "I  am  thinking  of  teaching  the  young  folks  some- 
thing before  I  die,  particularly  tempo — that  is,  interpreta- 
tion"; and  then  invites  Wilhelmj  to  assist  him  in  this  task 
at  Bayreuth. 

One  of  the  ways  in  which  Wilhelmj  showed  his  admira- 
tion of  Wagner  was  by  arranging  some  of  his  operatic 
melodies  for  violin  and  piano,  among  them  the  Siegfried 
Paraphrase,  concerning  which  Liszt  wrote  to  him:  "From 
the  first  to  the  last  bar  it  is  excellent." 

It  was  through  Wilhelmj  that  Londoners  got  their  first 
opportunity  to  hear  Hans  Richter,  who  became  such  a 
powerful  missionary  for  modern  music.  As  a  teacher  of 
the  violin,  also,  Wilhelmj  exerted  a  salutary  influence  on 
English  musical  life,  as  he  gave  lessons  for  some  years  at 
the  Guildhall  Music  School.  That  he  did  not  neglect  to 
visit  America  it  is  needless  to  say;  and  here,  as  in  Europe, 
in  Asia,  in  Australia,  his  success  was  sensational.  To 
what  was  his  success  due? 

When  Liszt  introduced  him  as  a  youth  to  David,  he  said: 
"  I  bring  you  the  future  Paganini."  Now,  Wilhelmj  always 
liked  to  play  Paganini  because  it  was  fun  for  him  to  "  ride 
the  dangerous  breakers"  of  that  difficult  music.  But  his 
heart  was  in  the  works  of  the  classical  and  romantic  mas- 

*  Richard  Wagner  an  seine  Kunstler.  Schuster  &  Loeffler,  Berlin, 
1908. 


36o  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

ters.  These  he  played  in  a  way  to  arouse  the  enthusiasm 
of  even  the  unmusical.  His  tone  had  incomparable  sen- 
suous beauty,  and  a  warmth  that  tempted  the  critics  to  use 
the  word  "seething."  But,  above  all  things,  he  was  emo- 
tional in  his  style;  he  had  temperament  and  personality; 
he  could  sway  strong  men  as  a  storm  sways  trees.  When 
Count  von  Moltke  visited  Wiesbaden,  in  1877,  his  first 
inquiry  was  for  Wilhelmj.  When  the  violinist  played  for 
him  he  cried  like  a  child,  and  afterward  said:  "It  carries 
one  above  this  mortal  world."    There's  the  secret! 

Fritz  Kreisler 

In  the  closing  paragraph  of  his  essay.  On  Conducting, 
Richard  Wagner  sneers  at  Joachim  and  declares  that  he 
has  no  use  for  violinists  except  in  the  plural.  He  made  an 
exception  in  favor  of  Wilhelmj,  and  he  would  have  cer- 
tainly made  another  in  favor  of  Fritz  Kreisler  had  he  lived 
to  hear  him.  Joachim  played  little  but  classical  music,  and 
played  it  dryly — like  a  professor.  Kreisler  also  plays  much 
classical  music,  but  he  plays  it  like  a  poet — with  deep 
feeling.  His  tone  is  as  juicy  as  Hawaiian  sugar-cane,  and 
it  has  that  great  variety  of  sensuous  and  emotional  shading 
which  Wagner  thought  could  be  obtained  only  by  having 
violinists  "in  the  plural" — twenty  or  more  playing  to- 
gether. When  he  performs  the  Beethoven  concerto,  for 
instance,  and  reaches  the  magnificent  cadenza  he  has 
written  for  it,  one  hardly  notices  when  the  orchestra  stops, 
so  full,  so  rich,  so  polyphonic,  so  highly  colored  is  the 
soloist's  part. 

Fritz  Kreisler  arouses  the  same  unbounded  enthusiasm 
by  his  violin  playing  that  Paderewski  does  when  he  gives  a 
recital,  and  it  is  the  enthusiasm  of  the  most  cultured  audi- 
ences, which  counts  for  infinitely  more,  and  is  very  much 
harder  to  arouse  than  the  frenzied  applause  a  mixed  au- 


FRITZ  KREISLER  361 

dience  bestows  on  a  colorature  singer  or  fiddler.  If  he 
pleases,  he  can  rival  any  Kubelik  in  playing  harmonics,  or 
pizzicati  with  the  left  hand  while  the  right  continues  bow- 
ing, or  other  dazzling  tricks  of  that  sort.  Luckily  he 
prefers  the  higher  regions  of  art,  and,  as  the  size  of  his 
audiences  shows,  there  are  many  music  lovers  ready  to 
follow  him  in  his  upward  flight.  He  does  not  need  to  ad- 
vertise a  program  of  technical  fireworks  in  order  to 
attract  the  public;  and  he  has  proved  that  it  is  possible  to 
please  the  public  with  better  things  than  double  harmonics, 
rebounding  bows,  and  banjo  pizzicati. 

It  would  have  been  easier  for  him  to  attract  attention  by 
means  of  fireworks,  but  he  preferred  the  quieter  and  more 
enduring  way,  although  that  implied  a  much  harder  strug- 
gle. To  quote  his  own  words  to  an  English  magazine 
writer:*  "I  am  thirty-three  now,  and  from  the  age  of 
twenty  to  twenty-seven  I  struggled  hard  for  recognition, 
though  I  played  every  bit  as  well  then  as  I  do  now,  but 
people  did  not  understand  it." 

Perseverance  was  evidently  one  of  the  main  secrets  of 
Kreisler's  success.  Had  he  become  discouraged  during 
those  seven  lean  years,  he  would  not  now  be  the  man 
highest  up  in  the  violin  world. 

When  he  plays  the  Beethoven  concerto,  Kreisler  seems 
like  an  inspired  prophet;  especially  when  he  proclaims  that 
magnificent  cadenza  in  it.  After  one  of  these  perform- 
ances I  wrote  that  in  an  experience  of  over  a  quarter  of 
a  century  as  a  musical  critic  I  had  never  heard  such 
great  violin  playing.  He  even  made  me  interested  in  the 
Brahms  concerto,  which  is  little  short  of  a  miracle.  This 
concerto  was  written,  as  a  German  wit  remarked,  "against 
the  violin  rather  than  for  it";  but  Kreisler  overcomes  its 
formidable  difficulties  —  which  appalled  even  Brahms's 
high  priest,  Joachim  —  with  apparent  nonchalance,  and 

*  B.  Henderson,  in  The  Sirad,  October,  1908. 


362  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

makes  it  seem  as  easy  to  play  a  concerto  as  to  shake  hands. 
It  recalls  the  story  of  the  Irishman  who,  on  being  asked 
whether  he  could  play  the  violin,  answered:  "I  don't  know 
— I've  never  tried." 

Kreisler  needs  no  imposing  concerto  to  impress  the 
public;  he  can  as  easily  cast  a  spell  over  it  with  a  short 
piece.  He  has  made  a  specialty  of  small  pieces  by  Tartini, 
Couperin,  Pugnani,  Lolli,  Francoeur,  Martini,  and  other 
eighteenth-century  composers — forgotten  "trifles"  which, 
as  played  by  him,  are  seen  to  be  little  masterpieces.  As  an 
English  critic  has  remarked:  " He  makes  the  old  music  live 
without  forcing  it  into  a  modern  shape,  and  he  has  the  in- 
stinct, which  hardly  another  artist  has  ever  possessed,  of 
making  the  subtle  differences  between  the  French  and 
Italian  styles  clearly  felt."  At  the  same  time  he  can  play 
Vienna  waltzes  as  only  an  Austrian  (Kreisler  was  born  at 
Vienna  in  1875)  can  play  them — with  a  swing,  a  rubato, 
that  are  altogether  enchanting.  Nor  does  he  hesitate — and 
this  is  another  secret  of  his  success — to  play  such  dance 
pieces  at  his  recitals.  He  is  sensible  enough  to  hold  that 
since  all  the  great  masters,  from  Bach  to  the  present  day, 
wrote  dance  pieces  a  serious  violinist  need  not  hesitate  to 
play  them  in  public. 

Every  popular  artist  has  a  sort  of  hall  mark  which  the 
public  always  looks  for.  Kreisler's  hall  mark  is  the  Dvorak 
Humoreskej  arranged  by  him  for  violin;  this  every  Kreisler 
audience  wants  to  hear — and  no  wonder,  for  he  plays  it 
1  entrancingly.  In  calling  this  piece — which  seems  Viennese 
rather  than  Bohemian — a  Humoreskey  Dvorak  must  have 
had  in  mind  the  undercurrent  of  sadness  which  it  has  been 
said  characterizes  the  best  specimens  of  humor.  In 
Kreisler's  hands  it  is  all  undercurrent.  Exquisitely  tender 
in  itself,  he  plays  it  with  such  delicacy  of  touch,  such 
warmth  of  color,  such  poignancy  of  accent  that  sensitive 
listeners  are  moved  to  tears. 


FRITZ  KREISLER  363 

If  you  can  move  cultured  listeners  to  tears  you  are  an 
artist  of  the  highest  type,  and  your  success  is  assured. 
Fritz  Kreisler  is  the  greatest  of  hving  violinists  because  he 
is  of  all  of  them  the  most  emotional,  the  most  tear-com- 
pelling. He  has  what  all  artists  so  eagerly  crave — tem- 
perament; and  temperament,  in  *the  last  analysis,  is 
feeling  plus  the  power  to  make  the  audience  share  your 
feeling. 

The  leading  Berlin  critic.  Dr.  Leopold  Schmidt,  in 
writing  about  Kreisler,  said  a  few  years  ago:  "He  can  now 
be  compared  only  with  the  greatest  of  the  violinists;  and 
even  in  doing  this  one  comes  across  many  traits  of 
excellence  which  are  found  only  in  him.  .  .  .  What  I 
esteem  above  all  things  in  Kreisler  is  the  warmth  which 
characterizes  his  playing,  beginning  with  his  silken  tone. 
Say  what  you  please,  music  is  an  emotional  art,  and 
it  never  quite  takes  hold  of  us  unless  it  is  exercised  as 
such." 

After  one  of  Kreisler's  recitals  in  New  York,  in  the 
artist's  room  a  little  girl  of  five  walked  up  to  him  and  said: 
"I  like  your  playing."  She  spoke  for  the  whole  audience. 
Few  could  have  explained  why  they  liked  it;  but  they  felt 
it.  Feeling  is  the  alpha  and  the  omega  of  music.  It  must 
begin  with  it  and  end  with  it.  The  rest  is  mere  technic 
— empty  juggling  with  tones  a  la  Max  Reger. 

There  are,  however,  feelings  and  feelings.  The  feelings 
of  a  cultivated  person  differ  from  those  of  the  uncultivated; 
they  are  more  refined,  more  intense,  more  enduring. 
Kreisler' s  feelings  are  exceptionally  refined  and  intellectual- 
ized  because  he  is  a  man  of  exceptional  mind.  He  might 
have  become  equally  famous  in  some  other  art  or  pro- 
fession calling  for  unusual  intellectual  power.  I  have 
talked  with  only  one  or  two  other  musicians  knowing  as 
much  as  he  does  about  things  in  general  and  philosophy  in 
particular.    He  frequently  emphasizes  his  conviction  that 


364  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

many  musicians  fail  because  they  devote  too  much  time  to 
music  and  not  enough  to  other  things  that  train  and 
broaden  the  mind. 

He  believes  that  if  one  practises  well  in  youth  the  fingers 
should  retain  their  suppleness  in  later  years.  To  the  Sirad 
writer  he  remarked  that  the  idea  that  one  must  practise 
several  hours  daily  is  the  result  of  a  self-hypnotism  which 
really  creates  that  necessity.  He  laughingly  added:  "I 
have  hypnotized  myself  into  the  belief  that  I  do  not  need 
it,  and  therefore  I  do  not."  He  is  a  hard  worker,  never- 
theless; but  he  does  not  neglect  recreation,  being  an 
ardent  lover  of  country  life  and  an  enthusiastic  motorist. 
"  He  believes  that  an  artist  should  not  be  compelled  to  play 
when  he  feels  that  he  cannot  do  himself  justice,  and  that 
he  is  not  in  a  position  to  give  us  his  best  when  he  is  con- 
tinually strung  up  by  travelling,  rehearsing,  and  playing 
(as  it  were)  to  order."  These  things,  alas!  are  true;  but 
Where's  the  remedy? 

While  collecting  material  for  this  volume  I  wrote  to  Mr. 
Kreisler  for  his  opinion  as  to  what  helped  him  most  to  win 
his  success.    He  replied: 

"  As  for  the  hints  to  students  I  might  add  that  in  review- 
ing the  influences  that  made  me,  I  really  can  only  see 
three  great  outstanding  powerful  factors:  (i)  my  work, 
(2)  my  wife's  love  and  help,  and  (3)  my  robust  health, 
(i)  My  work  branches  into  musical  and  general  studies 
(such  as  philosophy,  history,  natural  sciences,  mathematics, 
Greek,  Latin,  and  modern  languages),  and  I  am  inclined 
to  lay  more  stress  on  the  ultimate  beneficial  influence  of 
my  general  studies.  My  work  in  the  sphere  of  music  sub- 
divides itself  into  purely  violinistic  and  general  musical 
studies  (such  as  musical  science,  instrumentation,  knowl- 
edge of  the  great  symphonic  and  operatic  masterworks, 
chamber  music,  piano  playing,  score  reading,  etc.),  and 
here  again  I  attach  more  importance  to  my  general  musical 


FRITZ   KREISLER  365 

training  than  to  the  purely  violinistic,  as  probably  the  more 
powerful  factor  in  making  me. 

"  (2)  and  (3).  As  to  the  other  two  great  influences  in  my 
life,  the  love  and  help  of  my  dear  wife  and  companion, 
and  my  robust  health,  I  can  only  humbly  and  thankfully 
acknowledge  their  tremendous  power  in  the  making  of  me, 
without  any  further  comment,  which  might,  I  fear,  dis- 
courage such  colleagues  and  students  as  have  not  been 
blessed  with  the  gift  of  those  two  invaluable  treasures," 


PART  V 
TEACHERS,  PARENTS,  AND  PUPILS 


XXIV 

SOME  FAMOUS  TEACHERS 

William  Mason:  An  American  Pioneer 

It  is  often  said  that  only  one  or  two  of  every  hundred 
students  of  music  succeed  in  becoming  public  performers; 
the  others — unless  they  change  their  profession — being 
"condemned  to  the  drudgery  of  teaching." 

"Condemned,"  indeed!  Is  there  no  drudgery  in  the 
career  of  a  singer  or  player  ?  And,  on  the  other  hand,  can- 
not a  teacher  win  fame  and  fortune  quite  as  well  as  a 
I  *anist  or  a  prima  donna? 

The  late  William  Mason  was  proof  incarnate  that  a  man 
does  not  necessarily  make  a  mistake  when  he  deliberately 
prefers  teaching  to  playing  in  public.  Did  not  his  own 
teacher,  Liszt,  do  the  same  thing  in  the  last  three  decades 
of  his  hfe? 

It  was  as  a  pianist  that  Mason  began  his  career,  after 
his  return  from  Europe,  in  1854.  He  used  to  express  the 
belief  that  he  was  the  first  who  dared  to  tour  this  country 
without  a  singer  or  player  to  give  variety  to  the  entertain- 
ment. Musical  taste  was  extremely  crude  in  those  days; 
what  his  audiences  liked  best  was  such  a  feat  as  playing 
Yankee  Doodle  and  Old  Hundred  simultaneously,  one  with 
the  right  hand,  the  other  with  the  left.  Under  such  cir- 
cumstances, it  must  be  admitted,  it  required  no  great  self- 

369 


370  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

abnegation  on  the  part  of  the  young  man  to  give  up  playing 
and  turn  to  teaching. 

It  is  fortunate  that  he  decided  to  do  so.  As  a  player  he 
could  have  done  little  more  at  that  time  than  amuse  idle 
crowds;  as  a  teacher  he  could  do  his  share — and  a  good 
share  it  was — of  the  educational  work  needed  to  raise 
American  taste  in  music  to  a  higher  level. 

For  his  own  fame  and  worldly  comfort  also,  it  was 
lucky  that  Dr.  Mason  left  the  platform  for  the  studio. 
Though  he  had  remarkable  gifts,  it  is  not  likely  that  he 
would  have  won  a  place  among  the  foremost  players;  but 
as  a  teacher  he  rose  to  the  first  rank. 

When  he  was  a  student  it  was  absolutely  necessary  to 
go  to  Europe  for  a  musical  education.  In  the  last  three 
decades  of  his  career  it  was  no  longer  necessary  to  do  so, 
and  it  was  largely  through  his  efforts  that  this  change  was 
brought  about. 

Mason  imparted  to  his  pupils  a  technic  which  had 
among  other  merits,  that  of  devitalizing  muscular  action 
in  such  a  way  that  fatigue  was  reduced  to  a  minimum — an 
enormous  advantage  when  one  considers  how  many  hours 
a  day  even  famous  professional  pianists  are  obliged  to 
practise. 

By  precept  and  example  he  taught  the  secret  of  that 
variety  of  touch  which  helps  the  pedal  in  securing  the  rich- 
ness and  the  chameleonic  changes  of  tone-color  demanded 
by  modem  concert-goers. 

The  most  important  element  in  musical  expression,  as 
in  elocution,  is  accentuation,  and  to  this  Mason  paid  special 
attention  from  the  beginning,  both  as  a  pianist  and  a 
teacher.  "All  music,"  he  said,  "is  full  of  nuances  and 
accents  of  greater  or  less  intensity,  to  which  pupils  hardly 
ever  give  any  attention."  He  made  them  attend  to  these 
nuances,  following  the  example  of  Liszt,  who  was  particu- 
larly insistent  on  accentuation.    But  Mason  had  learned 


WILLIAM  MASON  371 

the  value  of  accentuation  before  he  went  abroad,  as  the 
impressive  anecdote  related  in  his  book  of  Reminiscences 
(pp.  22-24)  shows. 

Had  Dr.  Mason  taught  technic  alone  he  would  never 
have  become  as  famous  as  he  did.  It  was  his  regard  for 
expression  that  made  him  a  model  teacher. 

His  pupils  felt  that  they  were  getting  results — and  that  is 
why  they  all  recommended  him  to  other  students,  and  why, 
finally,  they  came  to  him  in  such  numbers  that  his  Steinway 
Hall  studio  could  hardly  hold  them. 

He  held  pronounced  views  as  to  the  importance  of  pro- 
viding good  instruments  for  beginners.  An  expert  pianist, 
he  said,  can  get  a  fairly  good  tone  out  of  almost  any  piano, 
but  young  folks  ought  to  have  their  ear  for  beauty  culti- 
vated by  having  mellow  tones  at  their  conamand  from  the 
beginning. 

In  discussing  pianists  of  the  day,  Dr.  Mason  and  I  had 
many  an  "indignation  meeting"  at  the  modem  tendency 
to  play  fast  music  too  fast — in  what  Biilow  called  the  "sew- 
ing-machine" style,  and  recalling  Schumann's  amusing 
directions,  in  one  of  his  pieces,  "as  fast  as  possible"  fol- 
lowed by  "still  faster." 

He  lived  eighty  years,  but,  till  nearly  the  end,  his  short, 
stocky  figure,  inclined  to  stoutness,and  his  kindly  face,  were 
a  familiar  and  welcome  sight  in  New  York  concert  halls. 
Unlike  so  many  professionals,  he  was  always  sympatheti- 
cally interested  in  the  new  composers  and  players.  From 
Paderewski  and  MacDowell  down,  those  who  had  real 
talent  found  an  enthusiastic  and  appreciative  friend  in 
William  Mason  and  a  welcome  at  his  home,  where  one 
could  always  find  the  elect  of  the  musical  world. 

MacDowell  was  one  of  his  great  enthusiasms,  and  he 
has  told  us  in  his  book  how  he  made  converts  for  him  by 
playing  his  sonatas  till  the  hearers  became  enthusiastic,  too. 

Of  his  tact  and  skill  in  adapting  himself  to  circumstances, 


372  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

Mr.  W.  S.  B.  Mathews  gives  an  illustration  in  The  Musi- 
cian. In  1855  Mason  accepted  a  group  of  pupils  in  one 
of  the  most  fashionable  boarding  schools  in  New  York. 
"They  were  mostly  Southern  girls,  with  fine  ears  and  no 
industry.  It  was  to  overcome  the  repugnance  of  these 
charming  creatures  to  master  the  key-board  which  led 
Mason  to  inventing  one  after  another  the  devices  of  his 
system  of  technics — devices  many  of  which  he  had  learned 
from  observing  the  practice  of  artists,  and  some  of  which 
he  invented  on  the  spot.  As  a  teacher,  he  was  the  artist 
teacher  rather  than  what  the  Germans  call  the  *  pedagogue.' 
That  is  to  say,  the  real  thing  with  Mason  was  for  the  pupil 
to  learn  to  play  music;  the  exercises  were  merely  means  for 
arriving  at  the  technic  of  expressing  music. 

"He  was,  so  far  as  I  know,"  Mr.  Mathews  continues, 
"absolutely  the  first  piano  teacher  to  set  about  teaching  a 
musical  touch  and  an  all-round,  varied  tone-production  as 
a  part  of  elementary  study.  To  give  an  idea  of  how  far 
away  teachers  then  were,  and  often  still  are,  from  under- 
standing that  the  first  thing  in  mastering  any  instrument  is 
and  must  be  to  learn  to  make  a  good  tone  upon  it,  I  will 
mention  what  a  very  celebrated  teacher  said  to  me — a 
teacher  of  European  education.  We  were  speaking  of 
teaching,  when  he  wound  up  the  story  with  the  dictum: 
'Touch  is  the  last  thing  to  teach!'  This  was  exactly  the 
opposite  of  Mason's  idea,  as  it  is  of  all  good  ideas.  And 
all  that  his  exercises  were  intended  to  promote,  his  own 
playing  illustrated  in  every  line. 

"Mason's  attitude  toward  his  instrument  was  that  of 
the  violinist  who  seeks  the  best  instrument  attainable  and 
buys  it  at  great  cost." 

Leschetizky,  Paderewski's  Teacher 

For  nearly  half  a  century  Franz  Liszt  devoted  a  con- 
siderable part  of  his  time  to  giving  free  instruction  to  young 


LESCHETIZKY  373 

pianists.  This  accounts  for  the  enormous  number  of  his 
"pupils"  up  and  down  the  world;  a  list  of  them  takes  up, 
as  previously  noted,  six  pages  of  GoUerich's  biography  of 
the  great  pianist.  But  Liszt  died  in  1886,  and  the  young 
women  and  men  had  to  look  about  for  another  instructor. 
Rubinstein  never  took  many  pupils,  and  died,  moreover, 
eight  years  after  Liszt.  The  great  successor  of  these  mas- 
ters, Paderewski,  has  had  no  time  or  inclination  to  teach; 
but  it  so  happened  that  in  1886,  when  he  was  twenty-six 
years  old,  he  followed  the  advice  of  Mme.  Modjeska  and 
became  a  pupil  of  Leschetizky,  with  whom  he  studied  four 
years;  and  when  he  became  a  leader  among  the  pianists  of 
our  time,  students  began  to  flock  to  his  teacher  in  the  hope 
of  discovering  the  secret  of  his  success.  Thus  it  came 
about  that  Leschetizky  became  the  successor  of  Liszt  as  a 
teacher  of  nearly  everybody  who  is  anybody  among  the 
younger  pianists.  His  house  in  Vienna  became  the  rendez- 
vous of  a  vast  number  of  students,  most  of  them  foreigners, 
particularly  Americans;  the  Viennese,  indeed,  got  the 
habit  of  refering  to  his  "American  colony"  at  Wahring. 

Undoubtedly,  Leschetizky  has  had  in  his  classes  more 
pianists  who  became  famous  than  any  other  teacher  ex- 
cepting Liszt.  Some  of  his  pupils,  indeed,  paid  him  the 
compliment  of  seeking  his  aid  when  they  were  already 
celebrated.  Among  the  well-known  names  in  his  list  are 
Paderewski,  Slivinski,  Essipoff,  Gabrilowitch,  Hambourg, 
Bloomfield  Zeisler,  Ethel  Newcomb,  Helen  Hopekirk, 
Katherine  Goodson,  Edward  Schiitt. 

Leschetizky  has  never  published  a  "method" — he  even 
objects  to  that  term,  because  he  does  not  claim  to  have  a 
special  technical  method.  But  two  of  his  pupils  have 
brought  out  books  on  some  of  his  most  important  princi- 
ples, and  both  have  his  approval.  They  are  The  Ground- 
work 0}  the  Leschetizky  Method^  by  Malwine  Bree  (admi- 
rably Englished  by  Dr.  Theodore  Baker),  and  The  Hand 


374  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

oj  the  Pianist,  by  Marie  Unschuld.  A  vivid  account  of  his 
classes,  his  personality,  and  his  life  is  given  by  Annette 
Hullah,  in  her  Theodor  Leschetizky;  and  there  is  also  a 
gossipy  volume  on  him  by  the  Comtesse  Ang^le  Potocka, 
who  comments,  among  other  things,  on  his  ability  to  recog- 
nize talent  at  once.  When  he  first  brought  out  Paderew- 
ski,  a  Viennese  musician  remarked  that  "the  young  man 
did  not  seem  to  promise  much";  but  his  teacher  retorted: 
"My  dear  sir,  you  will  have  to  get  used  to  hearing  that 
young  man's  name." 

Some  of  the  details  given  by  the  Countess  give  the  im- 
pression that  this  teacher  must  be  a  most  irascible  old 
gentleman.  We  read  of  his  "thundering  rage";  of  his 
"throwing  music  at  pupils";  of  "the  often  hasty  retreat  of 
the  unfortunate  pupil."  But  there  was  method  in  this 
^'"madness." 

Gabrilowitch  relates  that  when  he  came  to  Leschetizky 
from  Rubinstein  his  new  master  thought  he  must  of  neces- 
sity have  what  Americans  call  the  "big  head."  "A  little 
cold  water,  he  reasoned,  might  do  me  good.  I  played  a 
Beethoven  sonata,  and  then  he  began!  Such  a  rating  I 
hope  never  to  receive  again.  I  was  terribly  humiliated  and 
concluded  naturally  that  I  couldn't  play  a  note.  Then  and 
there  I  made  up  my  mind  to  give  up  music  altogether  and 
to  make  a  fresh  start  at  something  else.  But  the  next  day 
I  changed  my  mind.  No  one  could  have  been  more  sym- 
pathetic than  my  master  when,  with  an  odd  little  twinkle, 
he  said:  'You  mustn't  mind  my  little  tantrum;  it  was  for 
your  own  good.  From  now  on  we'll  make  splendid  prog- 
ress together.'  Perhaps,"  concludes  Gabrilowitch,  "I  did 
have  the  big  head.  But  Leschetizky  cured  me — at  least 
I  hope  so." 

"Cures"  are  a  specialty  of  this  teacher.  "I  am  a 
doctor,"  he  says,  "to  whom  pupils  come  as  patients  to  be 
cured  of  their  musical  ailments,  and  the  remedy  must  vary 


LESCHETIZKY  375 

in  each  case."  He  takes  special  pleasure  in  finding 
remedies  for  unusual  ailments. 

Unlike  Liszt,  Leschetizky  gives  instruction  in  technical 
matters;  at  any  rate  he  did  so  until  the  number  of  his 
pupils  became  too  large.  In  1906  there  were  over  150, 
and  he  employed  a  number  of  assistants,  giving  his  time — 
three  hours  a  day — only  to  those  who  had  been  properly 
prepared  and  were  sufficiently  advanced  to  benefit  by  his 
personal  instruction. 

Fannie  Bloomfield  Zeisler  says  that  Leschetizky's  method 
is  to  have  no  fixed  method.  "  Of  course  there  are  certain 
preparatory  exercises  which  with  slight  variations  he  wants 
all  his  pupils  to  go  through.  But  it  is  not  so  much  the 
exercises  in  themselves  as  the  patience  and  painful. per- 
sistence in  executing  them  to  which  they  owe  their  virtue. 
.  .  .  Leschetizky,  without  any  particular  method,  is  a  great 
force  by  virtue  of  his  tremendously  interesting  personality 
and  his  great  qualities  as  an  artist.  He  is  himself  a  never- 
ending  source  of  inspiration.  At  seventy-eight  he  is  still 
a  youth,  full  of  vitality  and  enthusiasm.  Some  pupil  who 
is  diffident,  but  has  merit,  he  will  encourage;  another  he 
will  incite  by  sarcasm;  still  another  he  will  scold  outright. 
Practical  illustration  on  the  piano,  showing  *  how  not  to  do 
it,'  telling  of  pertinent  stories  to  elucidate  a  point,  are 
among  the  means  which  he  constantly  employs  to  bring  out 
the  best  that  is  in  his  pupils."  * 

"  He  has  the  genius  for  seizing  on  what  the  finest  artists 
do  in  their  best  moments,"  says  Henry  C.  Lahee,t  "ob- 
serving how  they  do  it  physically,  and,  in  a  sense,  systema- 
tizing it.  .  .  .  He  has  no  'method'  except  perhaps  in  the 


♦  The  same  brilliant  Chicago  pianist  is  cited  by  Genevieve  Bisbee  as 
having  once  said:  "  Yes,  Leschetizky  is  awful  to  study  with,  but,  were 
he  to  kick  me  down  the  front  steps,  I  would  crawl  to  him  again  up  the 
back  steps." 

I  Famous  Pianists  of  To-day  and  Yesterday. 


376  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

technical  groundwork — the  grammar  of  piano-forte  playing 
— and  this  is  taught  by  his  assistants.  So  long  as  the  effect 
is  produced,  he  is  not  pedantic  as  to  how  it  is  done,  there 
being  many  ways  to  attain  the  same  end." 

Annette  Hullah,  who  has  written  the  best  book  on 
Leschetizky,  mentions,  among  the  technical  characteristics 
noticeable  in  his  pupils,  emphasized  rhythm,  clearness,  in- 
audible pedallings,  and  brilliance  in  staccato  passages. 
"  He  lays  special  stress  on  a  few  points:  the  development  of 
strength  and  sensitiveness  in  the  finger  tips;  clear  distinc- 
tion between  the  many  varieties  of  touch;  the  necessity  of 
an  immaculate  pedalling."  On  another  point  he  is  inexor- 
able: the  necessity  of  concentrated  thought.  The  pupil 
has  to  take  one  bar  or  phrase  at  a  time  and  make  it  at  once 
as  perfect  as  he  can,  deciding  on  every  detail  of  fingering, 
touch,  pedalling,  accent,  etc.  He  must  know  this  so 
thoroughly  that  he  can  see  in  his  mind  what  is  written,  each 
bar  being  engraved  on  it  as  on  a  map.  "  One  page  a  day 
so  learned  will  give  you  a  trunkful  of  music  for  your  reper- 
toire at  the  end  of  the  year,"  he  says,  "and,  moreover,  it 
will  remain  securely  in  your  memory."  This  method  of 
study  will,  he  further  maintains,  serve  as  an  antidote  to 
stage  fright. 

No  one  could  be  more  broad-minded  than  this  great 
teacher.  Concerning  his  way  of  teaching,  he  says  to  his 
pupils:  "I  have  thought  over  these  things  all  my  life,  but 
if  you  can  find  better  ways  than  mine  I  will  adopt  them — 
yes,  and  I  will  take  two  lessons  of  you  and  give  you  a 
thousand  florins  a  lesson." 

At  the  time  when  he  was  a  concert  pianist  he  practised 
only  three  hours  a  day  at  most,  and  he  thinks  that  four  or 
five  hours  should  be  enough  for  any  one.  He  never  takes 
students  for  a  few  lessons,  and  acknowledges  as  his  real 
pupils  only  those  who  have  studied  with  him  at  least  two 
years.    He  demands  the  most  intense  concentrated  interest 


LESCHETIZKY  377 

in  the  lessons  and  in  the  music  played,  and  "enthusiasm  he 
must  and  will  have."  In  teaching  he  uses  a  second  piano 
adjoining  the  pupil's,  on  which  he  frequently  illustrates  the 
points  he  explains.  He  needs  no  printed  music  for  this, 
his  remarkable  memory  enabling  him  to  remember  in  de- 
tail any  piece  he  has  heard  once. 

The  career  of  Leschetizky,  like  that  of  William  Mason, 
shows  that  highest  honors  are  attainable  by  teachers  as 
well  as  by  players.  Had  he  continued  his  career  as 
pianist  it  is  not  likely  that  he  would  have  rivalled  his  great 
countryman,  Paderewski.  Now  he  enjoys  world-fame  as 
the  most  successful  of  teachers  and  as  the  man  who  helped 
to  make  Paderewski  the  most  successful  of  all  pianists. 
There  are  two  ways,  particularly,  in  which  he  did  this. 
He  revealed  to  him  the  real  Beethoven,  and  he  taught  him 
the  superlative  value  of  the  pause  in  music,  of  which  I 
spoke  in  the  chapter  on  Paderewski.  Concerning  Beetho- 
ven, let  me  quote  what  Leschetizky  said  in  an  interview 
with  E.  Hughes: 

"  One  must  play  Beethoven  with  feeling,  with  warmth. 
Beethoven  himself  hated  this  so-called  'classical'  piano 
playing  which  so  many  pianists  affect.  That  he  was 
no  pedant  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  he  wrote  more 
expression  signs  in  his  compositions  than  any  one  else 
has  ever  done — and  changed  them  more  often!  These 
things  I  had  from  his  own  pupil,  Czerny,  with  whom  I 
studied  all  of  the  Beethoven  concertos  and  most  of  the 
sonatas." 

As  regards  the  value  of  the  pause,  Mary  Hallock  wrote, 
in  an  article  on  the  Elocution  of  Playing  "Leschetizky, 
whose  greatness  as  a  teacher  depends  so  much  on  his 
dramatic  sense  in  matters  musical,  makes  his  pupils 
realize  thoroughly  that  a  pause,  no  matter  how  slight,  but 
utterly  empty  of  sound,  is  as  telling  in  music  as  when  an 
orator  makes  use  of  the  same  in  a  peroration;  providing, 


378  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

of  course,  the  moment  grasped  is  at  a  fitting  and  crucial 
point  of  the  piece  or  concerto  and  does  not  distort  the 
time. 

"  A  whole  essay  could  be  written  on  silence  in  music,  and 
to  how  many  has  it  occurred  that  so  soon  as  the  melee  has 
commenced  it  needn't,  parrot-like,  assail  the  ears  from 
beginning  to  end  ?  " 

Ottokar  Sevcik,  Kubelik's  Teacher 

What  the  world  expects  of  a  teacher  is  results.  Paderew- 
ski  made  Leschetizky  famous.  No  doubt  he  would  have 
won  distinction  had  he  studied  with  some  other  teacher; 
but  his  countryman  helped  to  put  him  on  the  right  path 
and  got  his  reward  therefor.  Leschetizky  was  lucky  to 
have  a  Paderewski  come  to  him.  Luck  also  played  a  r61e 
in  making  the  Bohemian  violinist,  Ottokar  Sevcik,  the 
fashionable  teacher  of  his  instrument.  He  had  played  in 
public  and  taught  at  various  institutions  until  1892,  when 
he  returned  to  Bohemia  and  accepted  the  post  of  principal 
professor  of  the  violin  at  the  Prague  Conservatory.  It 
happened  that  just  about  this  time  a  Bohemian  boy  named 
Jan  Kubelik  entered  this  conservatory.  Though  only 
twelve  years  old,  he  already  astonished  every  one  by  his 
brilliant  playing.  Then  Sevcik  took  him  in  hand  and 
made  of  him  a  modern  Paganini,  who  soon  became  a 
modern  Croesus,  too. 

This  alone  would  have  sufficed  to  make  the  Prague 
Conservatory  the  head-quarters  of  violin  students.  But 
when  Sevcik  had  sent  forth  two  more  successful  illustrations 
of  his  method,  Kocian  and  Marie  Hall,  the  rush  began. 
Among  those  eager  to  benefit  by  his  instruction  were  sons 
of  Wilhelmj  and  Hugo  Heermann,  and  a  daughter  of 
Wieniawski.  Soon  the  number  of  his  pupils  rose  to  a 
hundred,  and,  like  Leschetizky,  he  had  to  engage  assistants 


OTTOKAR  SEVCIK  379 

to  prepare  them  for  an  occasional  lesson  by  himself  once 
a  month,  or  at  best  once  a  week. 

Sevcik  prides  himself  on  "teaching  his  pupils  how  to 
leam,"  and  he  is  credited  with  the  gift  of  stimulating  them 
to  an  almost  superhuman  exercise  of  patience  by  his 
personal  magnetism.  Grove's  Dictionary  of  Music  and 
Musicians  gives  this  account  of  the  method  pursued 
under  his  direction  by  his  pupils: 

For  as  many  hours  daily  as  their  strength  will  allow, 
they  play  small  sections  of  passages  backward  and  for- 
ward hundreds,  even  thousands,  of  times,  in  every  possible 
fingering  and  variety  of  bowing.  No  other  teacher  of  the 
violin  has  the  knowledge  which  Sevcik  possesses  of  the 
anatomical  structure  of  the  hand  and  arm.  The  position 
'of  the  hand  holding  the  violin  he  regulates  according  to  the 
physique  of  the  pupil,  whose  muscles  (those  controlling  the 
fingers)  are  systematically  trained  by  his  exercises  to  re- 
spond quickly,  so  that  in  the  end  remarkable  facility  in 
shifting  position  is  gained.  The  fingers  of  the  left  hand  are 
kept  down  more  rigidly  than  in  the  Joachim  school,  and  the 
management  of  the  bow  is  taught  with  extraordinary 
minuteness  of  detail.  He  divides  it  not  only  into  the  usual 
three  sections,  but  also  into  subdivisions,  and  of  course  the 
pupil  has  to  apportion  each  accurately  in  accordance  with 
the  nature  of  the  phrase,  thus  acquiring  great  command 
of  tone  and  accent.  In  short,  under  the  Sevcik  system, 
nothing  is  left  undone  that  methodical  training  of  ear  or 
muscles  can  accomplish.  In  regard  to  interpretation,  the 
professor  (seated  at  the  piano-forte)  teaches  all  the  great 
concertos  on  sound  technical  lines,  but  the  development  of 
the  psychical  side  of  the  student's  nature,  the  bringing  to 
bear  upon  him  of  subtle  influences  which  tend  to  make 
him  a  great  interpretative  artist,  must  come  from  without. 
In  the  case  of  some  of  his  pupils,  these  influences  appear  to 
have  been  absent,  but  that  is  no  fault  of  Sevcik,  whose  life- 
work  lies  in  the  domain  of  pure  technique,  which  he 
teaches,  not  only  to  his  pupils,  but  to  the  world,  with  a 


38o  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

passion  which  is  akin  to  genius;  to  the  world  by  means  of 
his  Method,  which  is  a  monument  of  patient  toil  that  will 
secure  him  fame  after  his  pupils  are  forgotten.  It  consists 
of  four  books. 

Judging  by  this  account,  and  by  the  playing  of  SevCfk's 
pupils,  he  is,  unlike  Liszt  and  Leschetizky,  a  teacher  whose 
alpha  and  omega  are  technic.  There  is,  therefore,  nothing 
further  to  learn  of  him.  How  differently  Fritz  Kreisler, 
or  Ysaye,  or  Maud  Powell  would  teach! 


How  Garcia  Helped  Singers 

It  is  a  singular  fact  that  the  greatest  teacher  of  the  Italian 
bel  canto  that  ever  lived  was  a  Spaniard;  but  this  is  only 
one  of  many  remarkable  things  about  Manuel  Garcia. 
He  was  the  brother  of  two  women,  Maria  Malibran  and 
Pauline  Viardot,  who  rank  among  the  greatest  singers  of 
all  time;  he  taught  Jenny  Lind,  Antoinette  Sterling,  Charles 
Santley,  Johanna  Wagner,  Mathilde  Marchesi,  Julius 
Stockhausen,  and  others  who  became  famous  themselves 
or  as  teachers  of  Calv6,  Eames,  Melba,  Henschel,  Van 
Rooy,  and  Scheidemantel;  he  invented  the  laryngoscope, 
which  not  only  put  the  study  of  the  voice  on  a  scientific 
basis,  but  proved  such  a  boon  to  medical  men  that  when 
his  hundredth  birthday  was  celebrated,  sixteen  societies  of 
laryngologists  from  all  parts  of  the  world  sent  representa- 
tives to  honor  him;  and  he  was  one  of  the  very  few  dis- 
tinguished men  who  reached  such  an  advanced  age  in  full 
possession  of  their  mental  faculties  and  with  enough  phys- 
ical vigor  to  go  about  and  make  speeches.  Garcia  came 
into  the  world  in  1805,  when  Haydn,  Beethoven,  and 
Schubert  were  still  living,  and  Wagner,  Verdi,  Liszt, 
Chopin,  Mendelssohn,  and  Schumann  not  yet  born;  and  on 
March  17,  1906,  he  celebrated  the  entrance  into  his  one 


HOW  GARCIA  HELPED  SINGERS        381 

hundred  and  second  year  by  taking  up  a  guitar  and  singing 
a  Spanish  song. 

Let  those  who  are  sneered  at  as  having  become  teachers 
because  they  failed  as  singers  take  heart!  Manuel  Garcia 
was  one  of  them!  He  went  with  his  father  and  his  sisters 
to  America  and  took  part  in  the  first  regular  season  of 
Italian  opera  in  New  York.  But  although  he  had  a  good 
voice  he  found  the  work  involved  by  an  operatic  career  too 
hard  for  his  physical  resources.  At  last  things  reached  a 
point  at  which,  as  he  once  told  his  biographer,*  he  went 
through  every  successive  performance  in  a  state  of  fear  lest 
his  voice  should  leave  him  suddenly  when  he  was  on  the 
stage.  Hard  usage  in  Mexico  damaged  this  organ,  and  he 
further  injured  it  by  trying  to  make  it  as  big  as  Lablache's. 
This  was  after  he  had  returned  to  Europe.  Following  the 
advice  of  his  parents,  he  went  to  Naples  and  sang  there; 
but  the  newspaper  criticisms  were  so  unfavorable  that  he 
sent  them  to  his  father  as  proof  that  he  would  never  suc- 
ceed as  an  opera  singer.  "From  now  onward,"  he  wrote, 
"I  am  going  to  devote  myself  to  the  occupation  which  I 
love,  and  for  which  I  believe  I  was  born." 

Thus  he  became  a  teacher,  a  profession  for  which  he  had 
prepared  himself  by  learning  the  old  Italian  method  of 
singing  from  his  father,  as  well  as  from  Zingarelli,  and 
Ansani,  while  F^tis  had  taught  him  harmony.  It  seems 
strange  that  the  man  who  thus  failed  to  adapt  himself  to  a 
stage  career  should  have  become  the  best  helper  other 
singers  had  ever  had;  but  such  was  the  case.  We  have 
seen  how  he  helped  Jenny  Lind  to  recover  and  improve 
her  voice  when  he  himself  had  feared  it  was  hopelessly  lost. 
The  rest-cure  and  the  singing  of  scales  and  shakes  very 
slowly  were  the  method  adopted  in  this  case. 

Another  pupil  whose  voice  Garcia  restored  was  Bessie 
Palmer,  the  English  contralto,  who  has  told  the  story  of 

*  Garcia  the  Centenarian.    By  M.  Sterling  Mackinlay,  1908. 


382  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

her  experiences  in  her  book  of  Musical  Recollections.  She 
was  first  assigned  to  a  teacher  who  made  an  incorrect  diag- 
nosis of  her  voice,  maintaining  that  it  was  a  soprano,  and 
giving  her  soprano  songs  to  sing.  After  some  months  she 
found  her  voice  becoming  thin  and  scratchy,  and  her  throat 
in  a  constant  state  of  irritation.  At  last  she  wrote  to  the 
superintendent,  requesting  that  she  should  be  placed  in 
Garcia's  class,  because  her  teacher  had  quite  altered  the 
tone  and  quality  of  her  voice,  and  had  made  a  mistake. 
The  superintendent  answered  that  she  could  not  go  into 
Garcia's  class,  and,  unless  her  present  teacher  would 
kindly  take  her  back  as  his  pupil,  she  could  not  return  to 
the  academy.  She  promptly  replied  that  she  would  not 
rejoin  that  class,  and  certainly  would  not  return  at  all. 
The  rest  of  the  story  may  be  cited  in  her  own  words: 

"  On  leaving  the  academy  I  went  to  Garcia's  house  and 
explained  to  him  how  my  voice  had  been  changed.  He 
made  me  sing  a  few  bars,  and  then  told  me  I  must  rest 
entirely  for  some  considerable  time,  not  singing  at  all,  and 
not  talking  too  much,  so  as  to  give  the  throat,  which  was 
out  of  order,  complete  rest.  After  six  months  of  quiet  I 
went  again  to  him,  when  he  tried  my  voice  and  said  I  could 
now  begin  to  practise.  I  therefore  commenced  lessons  at 
once,  and  soon  found  it  improving,  thanks  to  the  careful 
way  in  which  he  made  me  practise,  bringing  the  voice  back 
to  its  proper  register,  and  giving  me  contralto  songs  after 
many  lessons." 

One  day  there  came  to  Garcia  a  girl  who  had  strained 
her  voice  by  singing  higher  than  she  should  have  done.  He 
told  her  not  to  sing  anything  in  a  high  register.  Once  only 
she  disobeyed,  and  the  next  time  she  called  on  him  and  had 
spoken  a  few  words  she  was  surprised  to  see  his  face  flush 
with  anger.  He  reproached  her  with  having  sung  soprano. 
Surprised,  she  asked  him  how  he  knew,  and  he  answered: 
"I  heard  you  speak,  that  is  quite  enough."    He  told  her 


HOW  GARCIA  HELPED   SINGERS        383 

that  in  ten  years  not  a  note  would  be  left  of  her  brilliant 
voice.  As  she  promised  not  to  disobey  his  instructions 
again,  he  agreed  to  take  her  back,  on  condition  that  she 
would  study  a  whole  year  without  interruption  before 
appearing  in  public. 

After  a  few  months  she  left  London  to  spend  the  winter 
on  the  Continent.  She  hoped  he  would  take  her  back  on 
her  return,  but  he  sternly  refused,  telling  her  that  he  never 
went  back  on  his  word,  and  adding:  "You  will  probably 
get  engagements,  but  do  not  base  your  future  on  singing." 

"  Time  proved  that  he  was  right,"  says  Mr.  Mackinlay. 
**  After  a  few  years  she  began  to  lose  her  high  notes  rapidly, 
and  soon  her  voice  was  completely  gone." 

Garcia,  in  telling  his  biographer  of  the  time  when  he 
himself  was  being  trained  by  his  father,  related  that  one 
day,  after  being  made  to  sing  an  endless  variety  of  ascend- 
ing scales,  his  desire  for  a  change  became  so  great  that  he 
could  not  resist  bursting  out,  "Oh  dear!  mayn't  I  sing 
down  the  scale  even  once?" 

This  same  thoroughness  and  painstaking  care  character- 
ized his  own  teaching.  The  acquirement  of  agility  in 
execution,  he  used  to  say,  required  at  least  two  years'  study. 
Vocalises,  such  as  are  used  by  most  teachers,  he  did  not 
believe  in,  preferring  to  give  his  pupils  simple  Italian  arias. 
The  first  lesson  for  every  pupil  was  a  talk  on  the  voice  as 
an  instrument;  the  lungs,  he  explained,  were  for  tone 
emission,  the  glottis  for  pitch,  the  oral  cavity  for  timbre  and 
vowel  tone,  the  front  of  the  mouth  for  consonants.*  This 
simple  physiological  explanation  let  in  a  flood  of  light  at 
once;  but  it  is  worthy  of  special  note  that  it  was  almost  the 


*  Every  teacher  and  student  should  read  the  Hints  on  Singing  which 
Garcia  wrote  in  collaboration  with  Hermann  Klein  in  1895,  and  also 
chapter  XIX  of  Mackinlay's  Garcia^  entitled  "A  Nonagenarian  Teacher." 
Mackinlay  was  the  last  pupil  to  go  through  Garcia's  regular  four-year 
course. 


384  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

only  reference  to  the  anatomy  of  the  vocal  organs  that 
Garcia,  the  discoverer  of  the  laryngoscope,  made  in  his 
lessons.  That  instrument  had  enabled  him  to  prove  the 
correctness  of  his  theories  of  voice  emission;  "beyond  that 
he  did  not  see  that  anything  further  was  to  be  gained  beyond 
satisfying  the  curiosity  of  those  who  might  be  interested  to 
see  for  themselves  the  forms  and  changes  which  the  inside 
of  the  larynx  assumed  during  singing  and  speaking."  It 
was  the  medical  men  who  chiefly  benefited  by  his  discovery. 

In  teaching  tone  emission  he  insisted  at  once  and  strenu- 
ously on  deep  breathing.  To  a  pupil  who  exhausted  his 
lung  power  he  would  cite  his  father's  maxim:  "Do  not 
let  anybody  see  the  bottom  of  your  purse;  never  spend  all 
you  possess,  nor  have  it  noticed  that  you  are  at  your  last 
resource."  He  emphasized  the  coup  de  la  glotte^  by  which 
he  meant  that  he  wished  the  pupil  to  "get  on  to  a  note, 
without  any  uncertainty  or  feeling  about  for  it,  instead  of 
slurring  up  to  it  (a  very  common  fault),  or  taking  it  too 
sharp  and  having  to  sink  to  the  proper  pitch."  He  looked 
on  exercises — scales,  sustained  and  swelled  notes,  arpeg- 
gios, shakes,  chromatics — as  the  foundations  of  all  good 
singing.  He  taught  that  there  are  three  "  registers  " :  chest, 
medium,  and  head-voice,  relying  for  this  division  on  the 
revelations  of  the  laryngoscope. 

He  never  claimed  that  he  had  a  "method"  of  hard-and- 
fast  rules,  but  tried  to  make  each  pupil  sing  in  the  way 
most  natural  to  him,  and  involving  the  least  effort.  The 
following  remarks,  made  by  him  at  the  age  of  ninety-eight 
to  his  pupil,  Hermann  Klein,  present  a  pleasing  contrast 
to  the  pretensions  of  those  teachers  who  claim  to  have 
discovered  a  new  method — the  "only  true  method": 

"I  wish  that  people  would  disabuse  their  minds  of  the 
notion  that  there  is,  or  can  be,  any  new  system  of  so-called 
voice  production,  or  even  any  satisfactory  modification  or 
development  of  pre-existing  theories  on  this  subject.    Only 


HOW   GARCIA  HELPED   SINGERS        385 

recently  I  received  a  circular  letter  from  Victor  Maurel, 
asking  me  to  send  a  record  of  the  changes  of  idea,  the 
variations  and  improvements  of  method,  that  long  observa- 
tion and  experience  had  wrought  in  my  work.  If  I  did 
not  answer  that  letter  it  was  simply  because  there  was 
nothing  to  say.    I  had  no  first  discoveries  to  record." 

One  important  detail  of  his  method  of  teaching  was  that 
he  took  infinite  pains  with  each  of  his  pupils,  thus  winning 
their  affection..  On  the  other  hand,  he  exacted  the  same 
capacity  for  taking  pains  from  them.  If  he  pointed  out  a 
mistake  at  one  lesson  and  it  was  repeated  at  the  next,  he 
would  shake  his  head  sorrowfully  and  say:  ''Jenny  Lind 
would  have  cut  her  throat  sooner  than  have  given  me 
reason  to  say,  'We  corrected  that  mistake  last  time.'" 

"I  try  to  awaken  your  intelligence,"  he  said  to  his  pupils, 
"so  that  you  may  be  able  to  criticise  your  own  singing  as 
severely  as  I  do.  I  want  you  to  listen  to  your  voice  and 
use  your  brains.  If  you  find  a  difficulty,  do  not  shirk  it. 
Make  up  your  mind  to  master  it.  So  many  singers  give  up 
what  they  find  hard.  They  think  they  are  better  off  by 
leaving  it,  and  turning  their  attention  to  other  things 
which  come  more  easily.  Do  not  be  like  them."  By  way 
of  compensation  for  the  pains  taken  by  pupils,  he  would 
make  pauses  during  the  lessons  and  tell  interesting  anec- 
dotes about  the  great  singers  he  had  known. 

His  pet  aversion  was  the  tremolo.  To  sensitive  ears  a 
tremulous  voice  is  as  disagreeable  as  a  flickering  candle  is  to 
sensitive  eyes.  Nevertheless,  there  are  teachers  who  delib- 
erately cultivate  a  tremolo  in  the  voices  of  their  pupils,  who 
are  consequently  doomed  to  inevitable  failure.  How  did 
this  practice  originate  ?  "  The  tremolo  is  an  abomination — 
it  is  execrable,"  Garcia  said  to  his  biographer.  He  went  on: 

Many  French  singers  cultivate  it,  and  I  will  tell  you  why: 
There  was  at  one  time  an  eminent  vocalist  worshipped 


386  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

by  the  Parisian  public.  His  voice  was  beautiful  in  quality, 
faultless  in  intonation,  and  absolutely  steady  in  emission. 
At  last,  however,  he  began  to  grow  old.  With  increasing 
years  the  voice  commenced  to  shake.  But  he  was  a  great 
artist.  Realizing  that  the  tremolo  was  a  fault,  but  one 
which  could  not  then  be  avoided,  he  brought  his  mind  to 
bear  upon  the  problem  before  him.  As  a  result,  he  adopted 
a  style  of  song  in  which  he  had  to  display  intense  emotion 
throughout.  Since  in  life  the  voice  trembles  at  such  mo- 
ments, he  was  able  to  hide  his  failing  in  this  way  by  a 
quality  of  voice  which  appeared  natural  to  the  situation. 
The  Parisians  did  not  grasp  the  workings  of  his  brain  and 
the  clever  way  in  which  he  had  hidden  his  fault.  They  only 
heard  that  in  every  song  which  he  sang  his  voice  trembled. 
At  once,  therefore,  they  concluded  that  if  so  fine  an  effect 
could  be  obtained,  it  was  evidently  something  to  be  imi- 
tated. Hence  the  singers  deliberately  began  to  cultivate  a 
tremolo.  The  custom  grew  and  grew  until  it  became 
almost  a  canon  in  French  singing.* 

Garcia's  quickness  in  diagnosing  a  singer's  shortcomings 
and  lending  a  helping  hand  is  illustrated  instructively  in 
the  case  of  the  eminent  American  contralto,  Antoinette 
Sterling.  When  she  came  to  him  she  had  a  range  of  thrqe 
octaves,  and  sang  the  soprano  as  well  as  the  contralto 
parts  in  operas  and  oratorios.  No  sooner  had  he  heard 
her  than  he  saw  the  danger  she  was  in.  "  If  you  continue 
as  you  have  been  doing,  do  you  know  what  will  happen? 
Look  at  this  piece  of  elastic.  I  take  it  firmly  at  the  two 
ends  and  stretch  it.  What  is  the  result  ?  It  becomes  thin 
in  the  middle.  If  I  were  to  continue  to  do  this  constantly, 
it  would  get  weaker  and  weaker,  until  finally  it  would 
break.  It  is  thus  with  the  human  voice.  Cultivate  an 
extended  range,  and  keep  on  singing  big  notes  at  both 

*  Read  chapter  XX  of  Lilli  Lehmann's  How  to  Sing  on  the  cause 
and  cure  of  the  tremolo  and  its  first  stage,  the  vibrato. 


HOW   GARCIA   HELPED    SINGERS        387 

extremes,  and  the  same  thing  will  occur  which  we  have 
seen  with  the  elastic.  Your  voice  will  gradually  weaken  in 
the  middle.  If  you  persist  in  this  course  long  enough,  it  will 
break  and  the  organ  be  rendered  useless."  He  advised 
her  to  abandon  the  high  notes,  confine  herself  to  real  con- 
tralto music,  avoid  practising  on  the  extremes,  and  build 
up  her  voice  by  exercising  the  middle  portion  of  it.  She 
followed  this  counsel  and  had  every  reason  to  be  grateful 
for  it. 

Marie  Tempest  was  helped  by  him  in  a  different  and 
quite  unexpected  manner.  She  came  before  him  attired  in 
a  very  tight-fitting  dress,  which  drew  attention  to  the  nine- 
teen-inch  waist  of  which  she  was  the  proud  possessor. 
Garcia  raised  his  eyebrows  when  he  saw  her  step  forward, 
but  said  nothing  until  she  had  sung  an  aria  for  him.  Then 
he  said,  with  his  usual  polite  manner:  "Thank  you,  miss. 
Will  you  please  go  home  at  once,  take  off  that  dress,  rip  off 
those  stays,  and  let  your  waist  out  to  at  least  twenty-five 
inches !  When  you  have  done  so,  you  may  come  back  and 
sing  to  me,  and  I  will  tell  you  whether  you  have  any  voice." 
In  relating  this  incident  Miss  Tempest  added:  "I  went 
home,  and — well,  I've  never  had  a  nineteen-inch  waist 
since." 

If  singers  would  walk  more  and  eat  less  they  would  not 
be  tempted  to  wear  the  tight  corsets  which  disfigure  their 
voices  as  well  as  their  forms.  Garcia  said:  '* Most  singers 
and  teachers  eat  more  than  they  should.  A  man  with  mod- 
erate teeth,  such  as  I  have,  can  grow  old  on  sponge-cake 
and  milk."  He  attributed  his  hale  old  age  to  this  modera- 
tion and  his  great  fnental  and  physical  activity.  He  did. 
not  touch  wine  or  spirits  until  he  was  ninety. 

Garcia  was  not  one  of  those  teachers  who  think  that 
rudeness  is  necessary  to  secure  results  from  students.  His 
acts  were  characterized  by  unfailing  courtesy,  even  when 
he  had  to  get  rid  of  undesirable  students.    Mr.  Mackin- 


388  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

lay's  book  contains  an  amusing  anecdote  (p.  251)  showing 
how  he  managed  to  get  rid  of  undesirable  pupils  without 
hurting  their  feelings.  However  profitable  such  pupils 
might  be,  he  had  no  use  for  them,  as  he  wanted  to  keep 
his  reputation  as  a  teacher  who  could  point  to  results. 

Jean  de  Reszke  as  Teacher 

To  be  a  "pupil  of  Jean  de  Reszke"  is  at  present  deemed 
quite  as  necessary  for  a  student  of  singing  as  it  is  for  a 
pianist  to  be  a  pupil  of  Leschetizky.  In  both  cases  it  is 
fortunate  that  fashion  has  chosen  the  best  possible  idol. 
Jean  is  one  of  many  eminent  singers  who  decided  to  close 
their  careers  by  teaching,  but,  unlike  most  of  the  others, 
he  did  not  wait  till  his  voice  was  a  ruin,  but  retired  from 
the  stage  with  the  first  slight  signs  of  impairment.  While 
no  longer  able  to  stand  the  strain  of  a  four-hour  opera,  he 
was,  therefore,  still  able  to  let  his  pupils  hear  his  beautiful 
voice  in  his  frequent  illustrations  of  his  remarks.  For 
these  alone  he  continued  to  sing,  as  Liszt  played  only  for 
his  pupils  after  he  left  the  concert  platform.  Lucky  pupils ! 
The  old  Italian  masters  taught  that  the  most  important 
feature  of  instruction  consisted  in  listening  to  good  singers 
and  trying  to  imitate  the  quality  of  their  voices.  Jean's 
pupils  have  the  inestimable  advantage  of  daily  hearing 
and  emulating  a  voice  which  is  at  the  same  time  beautiful 
and  intensely  emotional. 

Jean  de  Reszke's  studio  is  unique.  He  teaches  in  a 
theatre — his  own  little  theatre,  which  he  built  in  the  rear 
of  his  residence.  No.  53  Rue  de  la  Faisanderie,  in  Paris. 
There  is  room  in  this  for  an  audience  of  about  a  hundred, 
and  in  the  sunken  pit  for  an  orchestra  of  thirty  players. 
On  the  stage  there  is  a  piano,  on  which  are  piled  a  number 
of  opera  scores.  All  the  pupils  are  taught  here,  where  they 
breathe  the  atmosphere  of  the  theatre  from  the  beginning. 


JEAN   DE   RESZKE  AS  TEACHER        389 

The  great  tenor  employs  an  assistant  to  play  the  accom- 
paniments, and  a  secretary  to  arrange  the  lesson  hours 
and  receive  the  fees.  There  are  four  or  five  pupils  in  a 
class,  and  each  pays  fifty  francs  per  lesson. 

An  English  journalist  in  Paris  wrote,  in  July,  1907,  con- 
cerning this  theatre-studio,  that  it  was  a  sort  of  "Petit 
Conservatoire,"  where,  however,  **  singing  went  on  from 
ten  in  the  morning  till  six  or  seven  in  the  evening,  with, 
perhaps,  more  enthusiasm  than  at  the  public  Conserva- 
toire. His  pupils  increased  to  such  numbers  as  almost  to 
fill  him  with  dismay,  and  the  last  time  I  saw  him  he  told  me 
he  had  85.  They  came  from  America,  England,  Russia, 
Germany,  and  Italy,  rich  and  poor,  and  every  morning 
one  could  see  the  future  Romeos,  Valentines,  and  Briinn- 
hildes  wend  their  way  to  the  Rue  de  la  Faisanderie,  from 
the  houses  adjoining  the  Bois  de  Boulogne,  as  if  on  a  pil- 
grimage to  the  home  of  their  master.  But  if  some  of  his 
pupils  belonged  to  fashionable  society  and  drove  to  his 
door  in  luxurious  broughams  or  motor  cars,  the  one  thing 
he  always  expected,  whether  they  pursued  singing  as  a 
profession  or  a  pastime,  was  that  they  should  have  talent. 
If  they  had  the  latter,  they  might  come  whether  they  could 
pay  his  prices  or  not,  and  many  a  promising  young  star, 
devoid  of  worldly  means,  he  has  taken  under  his  wing  and 
taught  gratuitously  for  the  mere  pleasure  of  art." 

"For  the  mere  pleasure  of  art."  Those  six  words  go  far 
toward  explaining  this  Polish  tenor's  remarkable  success 
both  as  an  artist  and  a  teacher.  While  he  is  a  man  of  broad 
culture,  he  is  so  enthusiastically  absorbed  in  his  profession 
that  he  seldom  talks  on  any  other  than  operatic  topics. 
Many  a  time,  when  he  was  at  my  residence  or  I  at  his,  I 
tried  to  get  his  views  on  various  matters,  but  invariably, 
after  a  few  minutes,  the  conversation  drifted  back  to  the 
opera.  It  may  have  been  "shop  talk,"  but  if  all  shop  talk 
were  as  interesting  no  one  would  ever  want  to  hear  any- 


390  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

thing  else.  I  learned  so  much  on  these  occasions  that  I 
might  quite  properly  put  "pupil  of  the  De  Reszkes"  on 
my  visiting  cards.  Every  detail  claimed  his  attention;  no 
peculiarity,  no  merit  or  fault  of  any  of  his  colleagues 
escaped  him.  Many  a  time,  at  table,  he  and  his  brother 
Edouard  kept  us  all  breathless  with  laughter  by  their  droll 
imitations  of  other  singers  and  of  diverse  instruments. 
These  two  men  might  have  made  as  much  on  the  vaude- 
ville stage  as  they  did  in  grand  opera!  Behind  the  scenes 
at  the  Metropolitan,  Jean  sometimes  imitated  Plan^on's 
rich,  deep  voice  till  that  French  basso  was  so  convulsed 
with  amusement  that  it  was  difficult  for  him  to  regain  his 
gravity  when  he  had  to  go  on  the  stage. 

From  Jean's  speaking  voice  it  would  have  been  difficult 
to  tell  what  his  singing  voice  was,  for  his  speech  sounded 
much  deeper  than  his  song.  Herein  lies  a  valuable  hint 
to  singers  to  cultivate  the  lower  register  of  the  voice  in 
speaking,  as  that  gives  body  to  the  singing  voice. 

When  Jean  first  began,  as  a  lad,  to  study,  he  was  so 
interested  in  teaching  what  he  had  learned  that  even  the 
servants  had  to  have  their  voices  tried  and  receive  some 
instruction. 

Edouard' s  sister-in-law,  Mme.  Litvinne,  had  a  voice  of 
great  range  and  beauty,  but  it  was  divided  in  the  middle 
in  such  a  way  that  she  seemed  to  possess  two  voices,  a 
soprano  and  a  contralto.  One  evening  the  brothers  started 
to  help  her,  and  in  a  short  time  they  succeeded  in  making 
her  use  the  same  quality  from  top  to  bottom  of  her  voice. 

Mrs.  Dippel  relates  a  funny  story  illustrating  the  serious- 
ness of  the  brothers'  teaching.  One  day  she  came  home  to 
find  her  husband  extended  on  the  floor  on  his  back,  with 
Jean  standing  over  him  and  Edouard  on  the  floor  beside 
him.  She  was  frightened  at  first,  but  soon  discovered  that 
Mr.  Dippel  was  simply  getting  a  lesson  in  breathing. 
Jean  gave  directions,  while  Edouard  knelt  on  the  floor, 


JEAN  DE  RESZKE  AS  TEACHER        391 

making  sure  by  Dippel's  diaphragm  that  he  was  following 
them  correctly. 

Although  Jean  did  not  actually  teach  at  that  time,  he 
was  always  ready  with  suggestions  for  his  colleagues  if  they 
wanted  them,  and  he  occupied  such  a  unique  position  that 
all — even  the  tenors! — were  glad  to  go  to  him  for  help. 
Very  few  of  the  prominent  singers  at  the  Metropolitan 
Opera  House  failed  to  profit  by  his  hints. 

After  each  performance  the  brothers  would  get  together 
and  criticise  each  other's  singing  and  acting;  for  Jean 
trusted  to  Edouard's  critical  estimate  of  his  work  more 
than  he  did  to  himself.  And  if  Edouard  would  say: 
"Jean,  you  sang  like  a  pig  to-night!"  Jean  took  it  meekly, 
but  lost  no  chance  to  return  the  compliment  when  there  was 
occasion  for  it. 

Edouard  was  of  a  more  indolent  disposition  than  Jean, 
who  frequently  had  to  exhort  him  to  practise  his  parts. 
The  valet  had  his  instructions — which  he  never  neglected 
when  the  time  came — to  compel  Edouard  to  throw  away 
his  cigarette  and  sit  down  at  the  piano  to  study. 

Since  Jean  established  his  school  in  Paris,  great  singers 
have  continued  to  come  to  him;  among  them  Slezak  and 
Knote.  There  have  been  few  German  tenors  endowed 
with  such  a  fine  voice  as  Heinrich  Knote;  he  sang  Manrico, 
in  //  Trovatorey  more  beautifully  in  New  York  than  Caruso, 
and  won  triumphs  as  a  Wagner  singer,  but  during  his  last 
season  at  the  Metropolitan  he  had  acquired  the  habit  of 
"singing  on  the  throat,"  resulting  from  insufficient  use 
of  the  diaphragm  and  stiffening  of  the  throat  muscles. 
To  cure  this  serious  trouble  I  advised  him  to  go  to  Jean, 
and  he  went.  It  is  actually  true  that,  as  the  newspapers 
related  at  the  time,  he  went  incognito,  disguised  as  a  trades- 
man, and  that  Jean  was  simply  delighted  with  his  "find," 
and  told  him  he  could  make  his  fame  and  fortune  on 
the  stage. 


392  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

Jean's  way  to  avoid  " singing  on  the  throat"  was  absolute 
simplicity  and  naturalness,  the  most  difficult  thing  to  attain 
In  singing  as  in  writing.  He  opened  the  throat  naturally 
"and  let  the  voice  flow  like  a  stream.  Correct  breathing 
from  the  diaphragm  is  to  him  the  fundamental  necessity 
for  good  singing.  The  diaphragm,  pressed  outward 
without  a  great  effort  or  crowding  of  the  lungs,  gives  a 
perfect  support  to  the  column  of  air  which,  becoming 
more  and  more  powerful  as  the  voice  ascends  to  the 
upper  tones,  pushes  the  tones  upward  with  no  effort  on 
the  part  of  the  throat,  which  is  merely  the  open  orifice 
through  which  the  sound  passes.  As  he  picturesquely  puts 
it:  the  breath  should  be  "so  you  could  sit  on  it,"  and 
then,  he  adds,  no  nervousness  can  make  the  voice  tremu- 
lous. He  never  allows  contortions  of  the  face  in  singing, 
and  insists  that  the  tone  must  not  be  formed  by  the  shaping 
of  the  lips. 
*^  One  of  those  who  have  received  instruction  in  the  Paris 
studio,  William  H.  Arnold,  writes  in  The  Musician :  "  Mr. 
de  Reszke  is  justly  proud  of  the  fact  that,  after  his  many 
years  of  singing,  the  tones  of  his  voice  are  absolutely  free 
from  any  suspicion  of  tremolo.  He  claims  that  it  is  proof 
of  the  excellence  of  his  method  of  singing  that  his  voice 
is  as  steady  as  the  tone  of  an  organ.  How  he  hates  both 
tremolo  and  vibrato!  To  begin  negatively,  these  are  two 
things  that  he  does  not  teach.  Just  as  the  old  Italians  early 
learned  to  do,  he  develops  in  a  voice  power,  flexibility,  ex- 
tension of  compass,  and  varieties  of  timbre,  so  that  the  tone 
of  the  voice  alone  without  the  assistance  of  words  will 
express  the  desired  sentiment." 

Nasal  resonance  is  another  thing  on  which  he  places 

great  emphasis,  going  so  far  as  to  say  that  "la  grande 

question  du  chant  devient  une  question  du  nez."     Part  of 

the  stream  of  tone  should  always  go  through  the  nose,  to 

"prevent  the  tone  from  being  what  is  called  "nasal."     In 


JEAN  DE  RESZKE  AS  TEACHER        393 

speaking,  most  of  us  use  the  nose  correctly,  as  a  sounding- 
board,  but  just  as  soon  as  we  begin  to  sing  we  are  apt  to 
do  otherwise,  to  the  detriment  of  the  tone  quality. 

Among  the  famous  singers  who  have  learned  from  Jean 
is  Ffrangcon  Davies.  Speaking  of  Santley  and  De  Reszke, 
he  says:  "Their  necks,  throats,  chests  were  not  sugges- 
tive of  those  of  pouter  pigeons;  and  their  attitude  on  the 
stage  was  free,  easy,  and  unconstrained.  They  showed 
no  rigidity,  no  embarrassment,  at  any  point,  when  they 
breathed.  M.  Jean  de  Reszke  favored  the  present  writer 
by  allowing  him  to  make  a  rapid  study  of  his  breathing 
while  he  sang.  He  did  not  give  one  the  idea  that  his  efforts 
brought  him  near  to  apoplexy;  nor  did  his  facial  color 
"""resemble  that  of  a  peony.  He  breathed  upward  and  con- 
stitutionally. He  was  mentally  active,  too;  Jbis  soul  was 
^in  his  work,  and  his  soul  'went  everywhere.'  He  even 
sang,  in  private,  a  'patter'  song  (of  the  cafe  chantant  sort) 
in  answer  to  a  remark  made  by  the  writer,  to  the  effect  that 
a  great  artist  must  sing  a  comic  song  as  well  as  Mr.  Albert 
Chevalier  and  music  drama  as  well  as  Jean  de  Reszke."* 

One  of  the  chief  lessons  taught  by  Jean  de  Reszke  is 
the  value  of  moderation.  Many  singers,  having  discovered 
that  they  can  secure  plenty  of  loud  applause  by  bawling 
high  notes  and  prolonging  them  beyond  all  measure,  throw 
artistic  principles  to  the  winds  and  appeal  chiefly  to  the 
kind  of  hearers  who  like  those  explosive  notes.  Jean  never 
used  them.  I  have  heard  him,  in  private,  emit  a  high  C 
with  a  power  equalling  Tamagno's;  but,  he  said,  "I  never 
use  these  tones  in  public;  if  I  did  it  once  I  would  have  to 
do  it  always,  and  my  artistic  standards  would  be  lowered." 
He  showed  that  one  can  become  the  most  famous  and  the 
wealthiest  of  tenors  without  ever  "  appealing  to  the  gallery." 

"Jean  de  Reszke  is  always  studying  just  how  far  the 
voice  can  go,  how  much  he  may  give  in  passages  of  intense 

*  The  Singing  of  the  Future. 


I 


394  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

emotion  and  still  keep  the  tone.  Time  and  again,"  wrote 
Karleton  Hackett  some  years  ago,  "  I  have  seen  him  shake 
his  head  and  heard  him  say:  'That  was  too  much;  that 
will  spoil  all/  That  is  why  he  has  mounted  higher  and 
higher  each  year,  and  is  to-day  a  greater  artist  and  a  better 
singer  than  ever.  He  knows  that  the  great  efiFect,  that 
which  thrills  an  audience,  is  produced  by  intense  passion, 
so  controlled  that  it  does  not  overstep  the  possibilities  of  the 
voice.  For  the  voice  is  an  instrument,  and  the  music  of 
Wagner,  if  its  beauty  is  to  be  revealed,  must  be  sung." 

Anton  Seidl  once  said  he  did  not  believe  there  ever  was  a 
tenor  with  such  a  combined  perfect  voice  and  finished 
method  as  Jean  de  Reszke.  This  method  has  been  happily 
defined  as  "  the  old  Italian  method,  amalgamated  with  the 
French  and  Wagnerian  styles."  It  was  from  Wagner's 
music  that  Jean  learned  the  secrets  of  the  consummate  use 
of  the  voice  for  the  utterance  of  poetry  and  passion. 


XXV 

HINTS   TO   TEACHERS 

It  would  take  a  separate  volume  the  size  of  this  to  give 
a  bird's-eye  view  of  all  the  famous  teachers  whose  activity 
and  methods  are  interesting  as  well  as  instructive.  But,  as 
in  the  case  of  singers  and  players,  we  have  to  content  our- 
selves with  a  few  samples.  Every  serious  teacher  will 
find  an  abundance  of  helpful  hints  in  the  preceding  chap- 
ters— those  relating  to  vocalists  and  players  as  well  as  those 
concerned  with  teachers.  For  the  benefit  of  teachers  who 
are  just  beginning,  or  sti  1  struggling  for  an  established 
place,  the  following  suggestions  are  offered.  They  are 
based  partly  on  personal  observations,  partly  on  talks  with 
teachers,  partly  on  clippings  gathered  during  a  period  of 
nearly  three  decades.* 

How  TO  Get  Pupils 

In  getting  a  start  as  a  music  teacher,  as  in  every  other 
pursuit,  the  two  most  important  things  are  summed  up  in 
the  slang  words  "pull"  and  "push."  If  you  have  a 
"pull"  with  friends  who  believe  in  you  and  send  you  their 
children,  you  may  get  established  at  once;  but  it  is  much 
more  likely  that  you  will  need  "push,"  too.    It  is  not 

*  The  best  of  these  clippings  are  from  The  Etude,  published  in  Phila- 
delphia by  Theodore  Presser,  and  The  Musician,  published  in  Boston  by 
the  Oliver  Ditson  Co.  These  two  monthly  periodicals  are  in  a  class  by 
themselves.  No  other  country  has  anything  like  them,  or  so  helpful  to 
musicians.  Every  teacher  and  student  may  derive  incalculable  benefit 
from  reading  both  of  them  regularly. 

395 


396  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

enough  to  put  a  sign  on  your  door.  The  world  is  full  of 
music  teachers,  many  of  whom  are  well  known  and  get  the 
patronage  of  parents  who  have  a  care  for  the  welfare  of 
their  children.  Advertising  in  the  newspapers  helps  to 
make  your  name  known.  Printed  circulars  mailed  to 
mothers  who  have  children  over  eight  years  old  have  been 
found  more  useful,  especially  if  you  have  given  concerts 
and  can  quote  favorable  notices  from  reputable  journals. 
These  circulars  should  be  mailed  a  few  weeks  before  the 
music  season  begins.  Sometimes  it  is  advisable  to  write 
personal  letters  to  mothers  or  fathers,  asking  permission  to 
call  and  discuss  matters.  In  such  cases  tact  is  important. 
C.  F.  Easter  relates,  in  The  Elude,  how  a  young  teacher 
called  on  a  gentleman  with  the  object  of  securing  his 
daughter  as  a  pupil.  He  failed.  Several  days  later  an  older 
teacher  called  on  the  same  father,  and  he  succeeded  in  get- 
ting the  pupil.  In  answer  to  the  question:  "How  did  you 
do  it  ?  "  he  replied :  "  The  first  thing  I  noticed  was  a  cactus, 
then  specie  upon  specie  until  I  must  have  counted  a  dozen. 
It  struck  me  that  the  gentleman  must  be  a  sort  of  cactus 
enthusiast.  I  spent  a  half-hour  at  his  home — twenty-five 
minutes  talking  cactus  and  five  minutes  talking  music." 
A  teacher  who  is  affable,  who  meets  many  people,  and 
easily  niakes  friends,  has  a  great  advantage  over  one  who 
shuns  society.  The  most  successful  teachers  are  usually 
those  who  have  cultivated  their  minds  by  reading  period- 
icals and  books,  and  who  can  talk  interestingly  about 
miscellaneous  topics.  They  are  invited  to  social  gather- 
ings by  women  who  would  ignore  them  if  they  were  nothing 
but  dry  pedagogues;  and  at  these  social  gatherings  they 
are  likely  to  meet  parents  who  are  seeking  teachers  for 
their  children,  and  who  will  be  apt  to  choose  them  if 
pleased  with  their  conversation  and  manners.  Even 
Chopin  got  his  pupils  through  his  frequenting  the  drawing- 
rooms  of  his  aristocratic  friends  in  Paris. 


WHERE  TO   LOCATE  397 

Sometimes  parents  can  be  persuaded  to  engage  a  singing 
teacher  if  it  is  pointed  out  to  them  how  great  an  aid  singing 
is  to  health  and  beauty.  Singers  must  breathe  deeply; 
they  do  not  die  of  lung  troubles.  Of  all  men  and  women 
in  the  world,  they  have  the  most  beautiful  chests.  Sandow 
himself  has  not  a  more  splendidly  vaulted  chest  than  Jean 
and  Edouard  de  Reszke,  Maurice  Renaud,  Lilli  Lehmann, 
Emma  Eames,  Lillian  Nordica,  Marcella  Sembrich,  and, 
in  fact,  nearly  all  the  great  vocalists.  Max  Alvary  was  a 
marvel  in  this  way.  I  have  known  girls  who  constantly 
suffered  from  throat  trouble,  but  who,  after  learning  to  sing 
correctly,  had  throats  as  healthy  as  the  gills  of  mountain 
trout.  Persons  who  have  learned  to  breathe  deeply  enjoy 
life  twice  as  much  as  others,  because  they  habitually  have 
the  buoyancy  and  exhilaration  of  health. 

Where  to  Locate 

A  teacher's  studio  should  be  in  an  easily  accessible  street, 
Jn  a  part  of  town  frequented  by  well-to-do  people.  This 
is  of  importance;  but  more  important  is  the  question: 
"In  what  town,  in  what  State,  should  a  young  teacher 
locate?"  On  this  topic  there  is  a  symposium  in  The 
Musician  for  June,  1909.  The  writers — all  of  them  ex- 
perienced teachers — agree  that  it  is  almost  impossible  for 
a  young  musician  to  earn  his  living  the  first  year  in  a  large 
city.  Smaller  cities,  with  from  5,000  to  50,000  inhabitants, 
are  often  excellent  locations,  unless  there  is  an  academy  or 
convent  which  gets  most  of  the  pupils.  It  is,  perhaps,  ad- 
visable for  a  teacher  to  shun  his  home  town;  "it  will  take 
him  twice  as  long  to  convince  his  friends  of  his  value  as 
it  would  strangers." 

Of  the  large  city,  W.  S.  B.  Mathews  says  that  the  prizes 
look  larger  than  they  are.  "In  Chicago  I  doubt  whether 
at  this  moment  there  are  ten  individuals  earning  by  music 


398  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

teaching  $6,000  a  year  or  more  each.  Yet  a  former  pupil 
of  mine  earned  this  amount  in  a  Western  university  town 
for  five  years,  and  it  was  as  good  as  $10,000  a  year  here, 
such  being  the  natural  difference  in  the  expense  involved. 
Moreover,  the  city  takes  a  long  time  to  begin  to  know 
you.  It  takes  advertising  of  one  sort  or  another.  In  the 
small  town  one  pupil  brings  you  another;  here  they 
rarely  do."  It  is,  therefore,  chiefly  in  the  smaller  towns, 
where  everybody  knows  everybody,  that  E.  von  Schlech- 
tendal's  maxim,  ^'one  well-taught  pupil  is  worth  more  than 
a  hundred  advertisements,"  applies. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  why  ambitious  young  teachers 
want  to  locate  in  large  cities:  the  opportunities  for  hear- 
ing good  music  and  superior  artists  are  so  much  greater. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  would  be  well  if  Borgia's  motto,  Aut 
CcBsar  aut  nulluSy  were  more  widely  adopted  by  musicians 
in  general.  Is  it  not  more  profitable,  as  well  as  more 
gratifying  to  one's  vanity,  to  be  king  or  queen  on  the  musi- 
cal chess-board  of  a  small  town  than  to  be  a  mere  pawn  on 
the  chess-board  of  a  metropolis  ?  In  the  one  case  you  are 
honored  and  courted  as  an  authority;  in  the  other  you  are 
ignored,  unless  you  really  are  a  king  or  queen.  Much  is 
said  of  the  necessity  of  living  in  a  "musical  atmosphere." 
But  which  is  nobler,  more  worthy  of  an  ambitious  musician 
— to  go  to  a  large  city  and  breathe  its  musical  atmosphere, 
or  to  go  to  a  smaller  town  and  create  a  musical  atmosphere 
for  the  thousands  who  are  longing  for  some  of  this  artistic 
ozone  ? 

Emil  Liebling  thinks  it  advisable  to  give  preference  to 
towns  located  amidst  well-to-do  farming  communities,  and 
where  retired  farmers  have  come  to  live  and  educate  their 
chilaren.  Such  regions  may  be  found  in  any  State;  but 
the  East  is  conservative,  wary  of  the  newcomer,  and  well 
supplied.  The  South  and  the  West  at  present  offer  better 
opportunities.    W.  L.  Blumenschein  tells  of  a  pupil  who, 


HOW  TO   RETAIN  PUPILS  399 

not  having  met  with  success  in  her  home  city,  went  to 
Montana  and  in  four  months  had  more  pupils  than  she 
could  take  care  of;  this,  together  with  her  improved  health, 
made  that  year  the  happiest  of  her  life.  Francis  L.  York 
recalls  perhaps  twenty  pupils  who  went  West  or  South  in 
three  years  and  had  excellent  success. 

The  musical  season  in  American  cities  lasts  only  six  or 
seven  months.  What  are  teachers  to  do  the  rest  of  the 
year? 

They  can  give  lessons  in  the  country.  Summer  schools 
are  coming  more  and  more  into  vogue;  they  are  chiefly 
for  pupils  who  cannot  go  to  the  cities,  although  in  many 
cases  city  pupils  follow  their  teacher.  W.  L.  Blumenschein 
knows  of  teachers  having  from  forty  to  eighty  pupils  during 
a  season  in  the  rural  districts  surrounding  his  base  of 
operations,  the  summer  being,  in  these  cases,  the  time  of 
harvest. 

As  regards  the  prices  to  be  charged,  they  vary  with  the 
locality,  and  it  is  wise  to  ascertain  beforehand  what  suc- 
cessful teachers  of  the  region  demand;  "yet  the  world  is 
apt  to  take  us  at  our  own  valuation.  After  a  certain  fee  has 
been  established,  it  is  very  difficult  to  raise  one's  price."* 

Good  engagements  in  music  schools  and  young  ladies' 
seminaries  can  often  be  secured  by  applying  to  a  reliable 
teachers'  agency.  This  gives  an  immediate  standing,  a 
sure  income,  and  valuable  experience  in  taking  care  of  a 
number  of  pupils. 

How  TO  Retain  Pupils 

A  teacher  who  cannot  retain  his  old  pupils  will  find  it 
more  and  more  difficult  to  get  new  ones.    Music  stu- 

*  According  to  a  writer  in  The  Etude,  the  prices  paid  to  music  teachers 
in  the  Southern  States  vary  from  25  cents  and  40  cents,  in  the  rural  districts, 
to  75  cents;  in  the  larger  towns  and  cities  the  price  per  lesson  may  reach 
$2.50  or  even  $3. 


400  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

dents,  especially  in  America,  have  an  aggravating  habit 
of  changing  teachers  frequently,  in  the  belief  that  they  are 
not  being  advanced  fast  enough.  Not  a  fev^  change,  like 
servants,  merely  for  the  sake  of  the  change.  The  teacher's 
most  serious  problem  is,  ''How  can  I  keep  my  pupils?" 

Make  a  distinction,  in  the  first  place,  between  those  who 
wish  to  become  professional  musicians  and  those  who  want 
to  learn  to  sing  or  play  for  their  own  pleasure,  or  as  an 
accomplishment.  All  beginners,  of  course,  must  be  taught 
to  play  some  technical  exercises;  but  it  is  a  great  mistake 
to  subject  both  classes  of  pupils  to  the  same  kind  and 
amount  of  technical  drudgery — the  mistake  that  is  made 
in  our  colleges  by  the  professors  of  Greek  and  Latin. 

Many  a  university  graduate  recalls  with  a  shudder  the 
elaborate  and  intricate  grammars  of  those  two  languages 
he  was  obliged  to  study,  memorizing  all  the  rules  and  their 
exceptions,  and  the  exceptions  to  the  exceptions.  These 
grammatical  details  and  subtleties  naturally  interest  the 
professors  of  Greek  .and  Latin,  because  they  are  specialists; 
and  in  their  superlative  folly  they  teach  every  student  just 
as  if  he  were  going  to  be  a  teacher  of  Latin  and  Greek. 
The  result  is  that  the  time  and  attention  of  the  student  are 
so  completely  taken  up  with  the  grammatical  side  of  Virgil 
and  Ovid,  Homer  and  Sophocles,  that  their  literary  charms 
escape  him  entirely.  I,  for  my  part,  had  but  a  vague  idea, 
after  leaving  Harvard,  of  the  value  of  the  ancient  writers 
imtil  I  reread  their  works  a  few  years  ago  in  collecting 
material  for  my  book  on  Primitive  Love.  Then  I  realized 
how  one-sided  the  college  instruction  had  been,  how 
purely  technical  (philological),  while  the  artistic  (literary) 
side  had  been  almost  entirely  ignored. 

It  is  owing  to  this  faulty — I  had  almost  said  criminal — 
method  of  teaching  that  so  few  college  men  keep  up  their 
interest  in  the  works  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  authors. 
And  in  music  it  is  the  same:  the  drudgery  of  practising  dry, 


HOW  TO   RETAIN  PUPILS  401 

technical  exercises  year  after  year  kills  all  interest  in  the 
art  and  makes  many  pupils  wish  they  could  burn  up  their 
pianos,  as  the  school-boys  sometimes  burn  their  grammars 
and  algebras. 

Surely  the  main  object  of  education  should  be  to  make 
boys  and  girls  love  literature  and  art — not  hate  them. 
And  this  can  be  achieved  easily.  In  Germany  the  poor 
children  are  so  overburdened  with  work  that  most  of  them, 
loathe  the  school  and  would  be  happy  if  it  burned  down. 
But  I  once  read  in  a  German  journal  about  a  woman  who 
taught  by  the  Frobel  method,  which  eliminates  the  word 
"must"  and  makes  everything  interesting,  the  result  being 
that  her  pupils  preferred  school  time  to  vacation,  and 
actually  cried  when  illness  or  bad  weather  prevented  them 
from  attending  the  lessons! 

Such  a  result  can  be  secured  in  music  in  oneway,  and  one 
only:  arouse  the  pupils'  enthusiasm  and  you  will  have  no 
trouble  in  retaining  them.  Give  them,  as  soon  as  possible, 
easy,  good  pieces  to  play;  and  mind,  these  pieces  must  be 
such  as  the  pupil  loves.  No  results  can  be  expected  if  he  is 
made  to  play  dry  sonatinas  by  the  old  masters  in  the  belief 
that  this  will  educate  his  taste  for  more  modern  music. 
Give  him  the  more  modern  music  at  once.  Why?  Let 
me  answer  by  asking  two  questions.  Is  it  not  a  well- 
known  fact  that  our  opera-goers  and  concert  audiences 
insist  on  having  modern  music,  and  that  the  older  the 
music  the  smaller  is  the  circle  of  those  who  can  appreciate 
it?  This  being  true  of  adults,  is  it  not  foolish  to  expect 
children  to  care  for  a  Scarlatti  sonata  or  a  Haydn  sym- 
phony ?  Give  them  a  Beethoven  adagio,  or  simple  pieces 
by  Bach,  Chopin,  Schumann,  Schubert,  Mendelssohn, 
Grieg,  and  they  will  play  them  with  delight. 

When  I  was  a  boy  we  used  to  play  at  home  the  old  string 
quartets,  among  them  those  of  Pleyel — very  simple  in  struct- 
ure and  style — the  kind  of  music  so  many  teachers  seem 


402  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

to  think  is  the  best  for  children.  This  insipid  stuff  bored 
me  unspeakably.  Haydn  and  Mozart  were  more  to  my 
taste,  but  my  enthusiasm  was  not  really  aroused  until  I  got 
hold  of  a  piano-forte  version  of  Weber's  romantic  opera 
Der  Freischutz.  Over  this  I  spent  whole  afternoons,  en- 
raptured, taught  by  enthusiasm  to  play  ten  times  better  than 
I  had  ever  played  anything  bejore.  The  zeal  thus  aroused 
was  afterward  fanned  by  the  songs  of  Schubert,  the  noc- 
turnes and  preludes  of  Chopin,  and  the  piano  scores  of  the 
Wagner  operas,  which  I  used  to  play  evenings  in  the  music- 
room  at  Harvard,  to  the  great  disgust  of  Professor  Paine. 

In  a  word,  it  was  enthusiasm  for  modern  music  that  led 
me  to  devote  myself  to  the  art  and  to  do  what  little  I  have 
been  able  to  accomplish  in  its  behalf.  Had  I  been  brought 
up  compulsorily  on  a  diet  of  Scarlatti  and  other  old  sona- 
tas I  should  have  probably  lost  my  interest  in  music  and 
devoted  my  life  entirely  to  scientific  and  philosophical 
problems. 

It  is  ten  times  as  easy  to  teach  an  interested,  enthusiastic 
pupil  as  one  who  is  indifferent,  and  the  success  is  propor- 
tionately great. 

After  imparting  an  elementary  technical  knowledge,  the 
instructor's  first  aim  should  be  to  teach  the  pupil  to  browse. 
Give  him  plenty  of  easy  but  good  music,  and  let  him  play  as 
much  of  it  as  possible,  regardless  of  fingering,  and  every- 
thing else  but  the  spirit  of  the  music  itself.  The  more  he 
browses  on  modern  music  the  more  likely  he  will  be,  in 
course  of  time,  to  learn  to  appreciate  also  the  older  masters 
as  for  back  as  Bach  and  Handel,  or  even  Palestrina  and 
Orlando  Lasso. 

Those  pupils  who  intend  to  become  professional  musi- 
cians or  teachers  must,  of  course,  expect  to  be  put  through 
the  most  rigorous  course  of  exercises.  But  even  in  these 
cases  it  is  well  to  remember  the  words  of  Schumann:  "It 
is  very  foolish  to  devote  hours  each  day  to  mere  mechanical 


HOW  TO   RETAIN  PUPILS  403 

practice  in  which  neither  head  nor  heart  are  concerned"; 
and  Rosenthal's  answer  to  the  question,  "When  is  the  best 
time  to  practise  Etudes ? "  ''If  you  must  study  them  at  all, 
do  so  after  your  day's  work  is  done.  Don't  throw  away 
your  morning  hours;    any  time  will  do  for  gymnastics." 

Mr.  Joseffy,  for  years  America's  leading  pianist  and 
pedagogue,  once  said  to  a  friend:  "For  the  last  fifteen 
years  I  have  found  out  the  uselessness  of  technical  work  in 
the  morning.  What,  waste  the  glorious  freshness  of  the 
morning  in  stupid  finger  exercises  when  you  might  be 
adding  to  your  repertory !  Rosenthal  has  only  lately  found 
this  out,  and  does  his  finger  practice  when  the  day  is  done 
and  something  of  lasting  value  has  been  accomplished." 

Reisenauer  remarks  regarding  one  of  the  most  famous 
German  teachers:  "The  everlasting  continuance  of  tech- 
nical exercises  was  looked  upon  by  Kohler  as  a  ridiculous 
waste  of  time  and  a  great  injury.  I  myself  hold  this 
opinion.  .  .  .  Technic  is  the  Juggernaut  which  has  ground 
to  pieces  more  musicians  than  one  can  imagine." 

There  are  too  many  mechanicians,  too  few  musicians, 
on  the  concert  stage.  One  feels  inclined  to  agree  with  what 
Perlee  V.  Jervis  says  to  the  teachers:  "We  must  choose 
between  making  our  pupils  good  exercise  or  good  piece 
players;  we  can  seldom  do  both."  What  the  world  wants 
is  good  piece  players.  If  you  understand  that,  your  pupils 
will  be  more  likely  to  remain  with  you. 

Many  teachers  lose  pupils  because  they  think  they  must 
show  their  pedagogic  superiority  to  the  students  by  pointing 
out  as  many  faults  as  possible.  Now,  fault-finding  is  all 
right,  but  merit-finding  is  equally  important.  Pupils  are, 
in  one  respect,  like  cooks.  If  you  want  good  meals,  don't 
always  find  fault  with  the  cook  for  her  failures.  Praise  her 
for  the  things  she  does  well,  in  proportion  to  their  excel- 
lence, and  she  will  stay  and  try  to  do  the  other  things  well, 
too.     Great  chefs  go  to  any  amount  of  trouble  for  the  ap- 


404  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

proval  of  an  epicure.  More  good  is  done  by  praising  a 
student  for  one  thing  well  done  than  by  pointing  out  a 
dozen  flaws.  "  It  is  better  to  encourage  than  to  discourage," 
is  the  motto  of  the  best  singing  teacher  I  know. 

In  twenty  years  of  teaching  experience,  Edith  Lynwood 
Wynn  learned  that  ''pupils  come  to  one  because  the 
teacher  is  interesting,  magnetic,  and  kind.  Young  people 
study  the  art  you  follow  fully  as  often  because  they  like 
you  as  because  they  like  the  art."  Be  courteous,  painstak- 
ing, sympathetic,  and  entertaining,  then  your  pupils  will 
like  your  lessons  and  tell  their  friends  about  you,  and  soon 
you  will  have  all  the  work  you  can  attend  to.  You  can 
make  your  lessons  entertaining  by  choosing  the  right 
^^usic,  by  telling  stories  of  the  lives  of  composers  and 
musicians,  dwelling  on  their  trials  and  triumphs;  you  can 
amuse  and  instruct  them  at  the  same  time  by  caricaturing 
their  faults  and  those  of  others.  If  they  are  discouraged, 
tell  them  that  even  Beethoven  wept  over  his  lessons  at  first, 
and  that  both  Weber  and  Wagner  were  told  that  they 
would  never  amount  to  anything  in  music. 

There  are  a  thousand  ways  of  making  lessons  attractive; 
but  the  best  way  is  to  foster  enthusiasm  for  good  music; 
then  even  exercises  will  be  played  cheerfully. 


XXVI 
ADVICE  TO   PARENTS 

Boys  will  be  boys,  but  there  are  ways  of  civilizing  them, 
and  one  of  the  best  is  to  teach  them  music.  In  his  book, 
God  in  Music,  John  Harrington  Edwards  gives  a  brief 
account  of  the  experiences  of  the  famous  choirmaster, 
William  M.  Tomlins:  "For  nearly  or  quite  a  score  of 
years  he  taught  gratuitously  several  large  classes  of  chil- 
dren, not  from  the  avenues,  but  from  the  alleys  and  poorer 
streets  of  the  city.  His  immediate  object  was  to  train  them 
to  the  right  use  of  their  voices.  At  first  they  were  rough  in 
manners  and  selfish  in  everything.  But  soon  a  better 
mind  came  to  them  through  the  influence  of  music  taught 
in  a  Christian  spirit.  The  children  sang  always  and  every- 
where, at  home  and  in  the  streets — their  characters  grad- 
ually changed.  Rude  boys  became  gentle  and  helpful, 
wild  girls  thoughtful  and  modest.  Some  went  to  the 
hospitals  and  sang.  Others  started  little  classes  for  their 
less  favored  friends.  One  boy  established  an  '  Old  Clothes 
Club'  to  gather  up  worn  clothing  and  distribute  it  among 
the  poor.  Another  issued  a  little  philanthropic  newspaper. 
With  that  spirit  of  helping  others,  a  great  blessing  came  to 
the  children  themselves." 

An  attempt  was  made  in  New  York  some  years  ago  to 
abolish  music  in  the  public  schools,  whereupon  one  of  the 
newspapers  gathered  the  opinions  on  the  subject  of 
thousands  of  parents.  The  vast  majority  voted  that 
music  should  be  retained.  There  are,  indeed,  few  families 
in  which  the  importance  of  a  musical  education  is  not 

405 


4o6  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

understood.  The  parents,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  want 
their  children  not  only  to  sing  in  unison  with  their  school- 
mates but  to  take  private  lessons  in  singing  or  playing. 
The  two  puzzling  questions  are:  When  to  begin  and  how 
to  find  the  best  teacher. 

Some  singers  have  expressed  the  opinion  that  voice 
training  may  safely  and  advantageously  begin  at  a  very 
early  age,  but  by  far  the  best  and  most  copious  evidence  is 
to  the  opposite  effect.  There  is,  however,  a  great  difference 
between  the  natural  and  the  artistic  use  of  the  voice,  which 
was  well  stated  by  Antoinette  Sterling:  "A  girl  may 
commence  singing  as  early  as  possible.  Cultivation  of  the 
voice  should  not  commence  till  ajter  the  change  to  woman- 
hood, ordinarily."  Doctor  Stainer  says:  "Little  girls 
should  not  be  taught  to  sing  at  all,  as  their  tender  voices 
are  often  permanently  injured  by  premature  efforts.  A 
female  voice  should  not  go  through  any  serious  work  or 
training  until  womanhood  has  been  reached."  And  Mrs. 
Curwen  gives  her  personal  testimony  thus:  "When  I  was 
a  child,  singing  was  not  taught  in  schools,  .  .  .  so  I  escaped 
the  habit  of  shouting  and  straining  so  common  now  with 
children  who  go  to  school.  And  I  never  had  singing  lessons 
till  nearly  nineteen  years  of  age."  Provided  the  natural 
voice  is  only  used,  avoiding  all  strain  and  loudness,  children 
cannot  easily  sing  too  soon  and  too  much. 

In  other  words,  the  love  of  music  should  be  fostered  long 
before  technical  training  can  begin. 

It  is  because  of  the  greater  delicacy  of  the  feminine 
organization  that  boys  are  chosen  instead  of  girls  to  sing 
soprano  in  church  choirs.  But  even  boys,  though  more 
robust,  should  use  their  voices  gently  at  first.  Soft  singing 
is  the  method  which  alone  leads  to  musical  results.  This 
is  the  most  useful  of  the  lessons  dwelt  on  by  Claude 
Ellsworth  Johnson  in  his  book.  The  Training  oj  Boys^ 
Voices  (Oliver  Ditson  Co.).    It  suggests  the  query  whether 


ADVICE  TO  PARENTS  407 

the  reason  why  so  few  American  men  have  become  famous 
singers  is  not  to  be  sought  in  the  fact  that  the  American 
boy  is  so  preposterously  noisy.  Mr.  Johnson  strongly  dis- 
approves of  parents  and  teachers  who  urge  their  children 
to  speak  and  sing  loud,  thus  causing  them  to  force  the 
thick  register  of  the  voice  in  range  and  power  until  it 
becomes  reedy,  coarse,  and  harsh,  like  that  of  children 
who  scream  in  the  streets. 

At  the  period  of  puberty  complete  rest  is  quite  as  im- 
portant for  a  boy  as  for  a  girl,  and  the  common  neglect  of 
such  rest  is  probably  the  principal  reason  why  the  number 
of  boy  choiristers  with  fine  voices  who  attain  to  eminence 
as  singers  in  after  life  is  very  small.* 

Girls  have  only  one  voice,  which  develops  gradually, 
whereas  a  boy's  larynx  changes  so  much  that  a  new  vocal 
organ  is  practically  the  result.  The  training  of  this  new 
organ  must  not  commence  too  soon.  The  proper  time  to 
begin  can  be  better  determined  by  the  family  physician 
than  by  a  teacher. 

If  the  child  is  to  be  a  player  instead  of  a  singer  the  regu- 
lar training  can,  and  usually  does,  begin  much  sooner — 
which  is  perhaps  the  reason  why  pianists  and  violinists  are 
more  likely  to  be  all-round  musicians  than  vocalists  are  as 
a  rule.  So  much  depends  on  the  health  and  general  dis- 
position of  the  child  that  no  fixed  age  for  beginning  can 
be  named.  Sarasate  appeared  at  a  concert  when  only  six 
years  old,  and  many  of  the  great  players  were  heard  in 
public  before  their  tenth  year.  A  German  pedagogue, 
Karl  Heuser,  maintains  that  no  great  success  can  be  won 
unless  the  child's  training  begins  with  the  fourth  year,  or 
at  the  latest  with  the  seventh.  It  certainly  should  not  begin 
later  than  the  tenth. 

*  The  Child's  Voice:  Its  Treatment  with  Regard  to  After -DeveloP' 
ment.  By  Emil  Behnke  and  Lennox  Browne.  Chicago:  A.  N. 
Marquis  &  Co.,  1885. 


4o8  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

Most  of  the  great  players  (and  composers)  were  infant 
prodigies;  "  but  the  number  of  great  masters  is  very  small," 
as  Rubinstein  remarked,  ''in  comparison  with  the  great 
mass  of  musically  gifted  children  we  admire  every  year, 
and  who  later  fulfil  none  of  their  promises.  Ordinarily, 
musical  talent  manifests  itself  in  children  at  the  tenderest 
age;  but  there  comes  a  time  (with  boys  from  fifteen  to 
twenty,  with  girls  from  fourteen  to  seventeen)  when  this 
musical  talent  suffers  a  crisis,  is  weakened,  or  goes  to  sleep 
forever;  only  those  who  are  capable  of  passing  this  Rubicon 
become  great  artists;   their  number  is  very  limited." 

It  is  therefore  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  if  a  child  is 
precocious  it  is  sure  to  become  a  great  musician;  and  a 
much  greater  mistake  it  is  to  force  its  talent  by  hot-house 
methods  and  bring  it  before  the  public  prematurely.  That 
way  nearly  always  lies  disaster,  through  premature  ex- 
haustion of  the  vital  forces.  The  case  of  Josef  Hofmann 
is  well  known.  Even  Liszt  narrowly  escaped;  and  when, 
many  years  later,  the  boy  Reisenauer  was  brought  by  his 
mother  to  him  he  advised  her  strongly  not  to  let  him  appear 
in  public  before  he  was  a  mature  artist.  "  As  a  child,"  said 
Liszt,  "I  was  exposed  to  public  criticism  as  a  prodigy, 
through  the  ignorance  of  my  parents,  long  before  I  was 
properly  prepared  to  meet  the  inevitable  consequences  of 
public  appearance.  This  was  an  incalculable  injury  to 
me.     Let  this  child  be  spared  such  a  fate," 

"When  is  a  prodigy  not  a  prodigy?"  asked  a  wag;  and 
the  answer  was:  "In  nine  cases  out  of  ten."  Too  many 
parents  fondly  imagine  their  sons  or  daughters  to  be 
"wonder  children."  The  average  teacher  will,  of  course, 
confirm  their  diagnosis;  he  wants  pupils,  and  dares  not 
risk  parental  displeasure.  The  only  safe  way  to  get  an 
impartial  verdict  is  to  consult  a  teacher  who  has  all  the 
pupils  he  can  possibly  take  care  of.  He  may  tell  the  truth 
— so  far  as  any  one  can;  but  he,  too,  is  not  infallible. 


ADVICE  TO   PARENTS  409 

Spohr  told  the  young  Ole  Bull  that  he  was  unfitted  by 
nature  to  be  a  musician,  and  Joachim  in  his  boyhood  was 
informed  by  Hellmesberger  that  he  could  never  become  a 
violinist. 

The  choice  of  a  teacher  is  as  difficult  a  matter  as  it  is 
important.  There  is  in  American  cities  an  average  of  one 
teacher  to  perhaps  every  1,500  inhabitants.  Those  who 
charge  the  highest  prices  and  have  the  largest  number  of 
pupils  are  by  no  means  always  the  best;  they  may  be  good 
business  men  or  women  and  very  poor  teachers — perhaps 
even  downright  charlatans.  ''Bluff"  is  often  effective, 
modesty  at  a  discount.  I  once  heard  of  an  escaped  convict 
who  called  himself  Professor  X,  hired  an  expensive  studio, 
charged  $4  a  half -hour  lesson  on  a  subject  of  which  he  had 
only  the  most  rudimentary  knowledge,  and  many  parents 
sent  their  daughters  to  him!  When  a  new  applicant  came 
he  pretended  that  all  his  time  was  occupied,  but,  after 
searching  his  books,  "just  managed"  to  find  a  few  unoc- 
cupied minutes. 

As  a  rule,  it  is  wise  to  avoid  "professors"  of  singing, 
unless  they  really  are  professors,  in  or  out  of  a  conservatory; 
wise,  also,  to  avoid  those  who  claim  to  have  a  "new 
method"  and  who  abuse  all  other  teachers  and  methods. 
Beware  of  teachers  whose  main  idea  seems  to  be  to  sell 
your  daughter  sheet  music  (on  which  he  makes  a  large 
profit,  and  which  is  usually  trash).  Beware  of  teachers  who 
go  into  raptures  at  once  and  promise  to  make  a  Patti  or  a 
Nordica  of  your  girl  in  a  short  time.  Beware  of  teachers 
who  claim  to  have  discovered  a  short  cut  through  the  diffi- 
culties of  the  art. 

Great  teachers  are  as  rare  as  great  tenors  or  sopranos, 
but  there  are  plenty  of  men  and  women  who  achieve  good 
results.  It  is  a  fatal  mistake  not  to  get  as  good  a  teacher 
(and  instrument)  as  possible  from  the  very  beginning. 
Then  is  the  time  when  ineradicable  habits  are  formed. 


4IO  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

Lowell  Mason  once  said  to  Frederick  W.  Root:  "Freder- 
ick, music  teachers  ought  to  be  promoted  down."  Teach- 
ing children  being  the  most  delicate  work  of  all,  he  held 
,  that  only  the  most  experienced  members  of  the  profession 
should  undertake  that  task. 

Try  to  get  a  teacher  whose  pupils  like  to  attend  his  les- 
sons and  who  do  not  complain  0}  tired  throats  or  fingers. 
He  will  be  likely  to  help  your  own  children  and  develop  a 
love  of  music  in  them.  You  can  assist  him  by  adopting  the 
Tom  Sawyer  method.  Tom  got  the  other  boys  to  white- 
wash the  fence  for  him  because  he  was  smart  enough  to 
make  them  think  it  was  a  great  privilege  to  do  so.  Make 
your  children  think  that  music  is  not  work  but  recreation, 
to  be  doled  out  as  a  reward,  and  they  v/ill  take  to  it  as  a 
trout  takes  to  a  mountain  brook. 

One  more  point.  "Parents  make  a  great  mistake,"  as 
Emil  Sauer,  the  eminent  pianist  and  pedagogue,  remarks, 
"  in  not  insuring  the  general  education  of  the  child  who  is 
destined  to  become  a  concert  performer.  I  can  imagine 
nothing  more  stultifying,  or  more  likely  to  result  in  artistic 
disaster,  than  the  course  that  some  parents  take  in  neglect- 
ing the  child's  school  work  with  an  idea  that  if  he  is  to 
become  a  professional  musician  he  need  only  devote  him- 
self to  music." 


XXVII 

HINTS  TO   PUPILS,    SINGERS,   AND   PLAYERS 

Genius,  Work,  and  Overwork 

Carlyle's  definition  of  genius  as  a  "transcendent 
capacity  of  taking  trouble"  is  pronounced  '* incredibly- 
stupid"  by  Herbert  Spencer,  who  holds  that  in  reality 
genius  is  quite  the  opposite,  being  the  ability  to  do  with 
little  trouble  that  which  cannot  be  done  by  an  ordinary 
person  with  any  amount  of  trouble. 

There  is  an  amusing  story  about  Donizetti,  who,  when 
he  heard  that  Rossini  had  written  The  Barber  of  Seville  in 
two  weeks,  remarked:  "I  can  quite  believe  it;  he  always 
was  a  lazy  fellow." 

No  ordinary  composer  could  have  written  an  immortal 
opera  like  that  in  two  years,  or  two  decades,  no  matter 
how  hard  he  worked.  Work  cannot  take  the  place  of 
genius. 

Yet  genius  without  work  is  helpless,  and  practically  non- 
existent. As  Rubinstein  remarked:  "Talent,  even  gen- 
ius, will  not  go  far  without  application.  Without  talent, 
but  gifted  with  application,  it  is  quite  the  contrary.  Thus 
it  is  that  genius  slowly  fades  away,  while  the  worker,  in 
time,  makes  his  work  known." 

Alexander  McArthur  relates  that  a  pupil  once  said  to 
Rubinstein  regarding  Beethoven's  sonata.  Opus  53:  "I 
don't  need  to  practise  it — I  know  it  thoroughly.  It  is  only 
a  waste  of  time  to  practise  it  more."     One  of  his  saddest 

411 


412  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

expressions  came  over  Rubinstein's  face,  for  there  was  never 
a  master  that  lived  as  he  did  in  the  work  of  his  pupils. 
''Don't  you?"  he  said  slowly.  "Well,  you  are  eighteen 
and  I  am  sixty.  I  have  been  half  a  century  practising  that 
sonata,  and  I  need  still  to  practise  it.  I  congratulate  you." 
From  that  time  on  he  took  no  further  interest  in  that  pupil. 

The  same  great  pianist  (or  was  it  Hans  von  Biilow?) 
said:  *'If  I  neglect  my  practising  one  day  I  know  it;  if 
two  days,  my  friends  know  it;  if  three  days,  the  public 
knows  it."  And  Tausig  remarked :  "  If  I  haven't  practised 
for  fourteen  days  I  can't  do  anything." 

Thalberg  declared  that  he  never  ventured  to  perform 
one  of  his  pieces  in  public  till  he  had  practised  it  at  least 
fifteen  hundred  times.  Kubelik  never  neglected  his  exer- 
cises except  on  the  day  when  his  wife  presented  him  with 
twins.  ''I  work,  work,  work,"  said  Caruso  to  an  inquis- 
itive friend. 

The  singer's  art  is  particularly  exacting — ''too  exacting," 
says  Geraldine  Farrar,  "to  permit  of  other  occupations.  I 
know  many  operatic  singers  who  frequent  society,  but 
every  indulgence  leaves  its  mark  and  experts  detect  it  in 
their  voices.  No  success  can  be  obtained  in  an  operatic 
career  unless  the  singer  concentrates  her  whole  attention 
upon  her  work.  It  means  that  one  must  be  'Johnny-on- 
the-spot'  all  the  time." 

"Some  of  my  best  impromptus  have  taken  me  years," 
said  a  famous  humorist;  and  an  English  journalist  relates 
that  Mr.  Grossmith  has  often  spent  nine  months  or  a  year 
on  the  elaboration  of  a  single  item  in  his  repertory. 
•^^^Do  not  scorn  minor  roles.  An  artist  who  is  painstaking 
^d  talented  can  make  such  a  r61e  seem  to  the  audience 
the  most  important  part  in  the  opera.  This  is  the  greatest 
possible  success  and  triumph. 

The  humblest  player  in  an  orchestra  is  the  kettle-drum 
man;    yet  this  man  can  and  should  be  an  artist.    The 


GENIUS,  WORK,  AND   OVERWORK      413 

London  Musical  Record  and  Review  tells  of  one  of  these 
men,  a  German,  who  spoke  of  his  instrument  as  reverently 
as  if  it  V7ere  a  Cremona  violin.  He  practised  the  "roll" 
daily  for  hours  at  a  time,  in  all  degrees  of  volume  and 
force.  He  would  speak  of  an  elastic  tone,  a  flexible  tone, 
an  intense  or  indifferent  tone.  He  would  speak  of  how  to 
shade  a  "roll"  artistically,  as  a  violinist  would  of  a  sus- 
tained fermata  note.  His  musical  feeling  was  of  the 
finest.  Liszt  often  heard  this  man,  as  a  member  of  the 
Schwarzburg-Sondershausen  orchestra,  and  bestowed  on 
him  lavish  praise. 

Too  much  cannot  be  said  in  favor  of  work.  John 
Constable  wrote:  "The  more  facility  of  practice  I  get, 
the  more  pleasure  I  shall  find  in  my  art;  without  the 
power  of  execution  I  should  be  continually  embarrassed, 
and  it  would  be  a  burden  to  me."  "There  is  no  easy  way 
of  becoming  a  good  painter,"  said  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds; 
and  the  same  is  true  of  music. 

Yet  there  is  such  a  thing  as  overwork.  "I  am  not  the 
slave  of  my  violin;  the  violin  is  my  slave,"  said  Sarasate. 

Misdirected  energy  is  worse  than  indolence,  and  there  is 
much  of  it.  It  is  said  that  Leschetizky  pronounces  the 
two  English  words  "hard  work"  with  intense  scorn,  and 
that  he  is  annoyed  with  those  energetic  Americans  who 
seem  to  think  that  the  one  requisite  in  music  is  the  same 
as  in  pioneer  conquests  over  a  primitive  forest:  Work, 
work,  work.  Talent,  judgment,  brains  are  required,  too^ 
in  music.  Read  James  Francis  Cooke's  article,  in  The 
Etude,  on  Overwork  the  Enemy  of  Success. 

There  is  often  overwork  of  the  hands  or  throat  in  the 
studio,  often  overexertion  on  the  stage.  Frequent  pauses 
are  advisable  in  studio  work — pauses  filled  up  with  a 
walk  in  the  open  air,  reading  a  book,  or  some  other  recrea- 
tion, be  it  only  looking  out  of  the  window.  If  you  can  do 
it,  shut  your  eyes  for  ten  minutes  and,  if  possible,  take  a  nap. 


414  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

As  regards  overwork  on  the  stage,  we  have  seen  that  it 
nearly  ended  Jenny  Lind's  career  at  its  beginning.  When 
Caruso  injured  his  voice  so  that  he  had  to  stop  singing  for 
weeks  at  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House,  I  wrote  a  warning 
article  for  the  Evening  Post  (April  17,  1909),  in  which  I 
dwelt  on  the  disasters  which  befell  other  hard-worked 
singers,  among  them  three — Charlotte  Cushman,  Gene- 
vieve Ward,  and  Johanna  Wagner — who  had  to  give  up 
opera  altogether  and  become  actresses. 

Maurice  Renaud  told  me  that  he  once  lost  his  voice  for 
a  whole  month,  and  it  took  two  years  to  restore  it  to  its 
former  condition.  This  was  when  he  was  about  thirty. 
He  said  that  singers,  especially  men,  are  apt  to  have  vocal 
troubles,  more  particularly  between  the  thirtieth  and  thirty- 
fifth,  and  up  to  the  fortieth  year.  Most  vocalists,  -M. 
Renaud  has  observed,  had  these  losses  of  voice  for  periods 
more  or  less  long.  "It  has  a  very  bad  effect  on  both  the 
artist  and  the  public,  for  the  public  hears  flaws  which  it 
did  not  notice  before,  and  sometimes  purely  imaginary 
ones.  The  artist  never  dares  again  to  do  what  he  had 
done  before,  even  if  he  feels  quite  competent." 

Lilli  Lehmann,  in  her  book.  How  to  Sing,  refers  to  the 
harm  done  to  vocalists  and  their  sensitive  throats  by  *'the 
rehearsals  which  are  held  in  abominably  bad  air."  She 
warns  singers  against  rehearsing  on  the  same  day  on  which 
there  is  to  be  a  performance,  a  thing  done  often  at  our 
opera-houses,  to  the  advantage  of  the  ensemble  but  the 
detriment  of  the  stars.  Some  of  the  Metropolitan  artists 
find  that  the  only  way  they  can  stand  the  strain  is  to  spend 
nearly  all  the  time  they  are  not  singing  at  home  in  bed. 
They  not  only  have  to  deny  themselves  all  social  diversions," 
but  often  cannot  find  time  to  take  the  exercise  necessary  for 
the  maintenance  of  health.  It  is  a  strenuous,  exacting 
life — but  it  has  its  rewards. 

The  champions  of  Wagner  are  indignant,  and  justly  so, 


THE  SHORT  CUT  TO   SUCCESS         415 

when  they  hear  the  remark  that  singing  his  music  hurts  the 
voice.  It  is  not  the  music  that  hurts  voices  but  the  ex- 
cessive duration  of  most  of  the  Wagner  operas.  LiUi 
Lehmann  urges  the  singers  to  refuse  to  appear  in  them 
unless  judicious  and  copious  cuts  are  made.  Wagner  him- 
self sanctioned  cuts,  except  at  festival  performances;  but 
there  are  zealots  who  clamor  for  every  bar  he  wrote. 
These  are  his  worst  enemies. 

The  Short  Cut  to  Success 

There  is  a  short  cut  to  success,  after  all !  It  lies  in  sub- 
stitntin^bminjwoxk  for  hand  work  and  throat  work.  The 
Japanese  dwarf  smote  the  Russian  Goliath  because  he 
used  his  brains.  If  the  modern  pianists  and  vocalists 
want  to  worst  the  piano  players  and  singing  machines,  they 
must  do  so  with  other  than  mechanical  means. 

Musicians  complain  that  theirs  is  a  long  and  tiresome 
road  to  travel;  but  that  is  largely  their  own  fault;  most  of 
them  have  not  discovered  the  short  road  up  Mount  Par- 
nassus. They  waste  an  enormous  amount  of  time  prac- 
tising withquFliFatm]  when  by  judiciously  "mixing  their 
colors  with  brains,"  as  some  great  artist, — was  it  not  Sir 
Joshua? — is  said  to  have  done,  they  might  save  most  of  it. 

An  hour  of  thinking  is  worth  more  than  ten  hours  of 
mechanical  practice.  Paganini's  secret — the  reason  why 
he  did  not  have  to  practise  after  he  had  won  fame — lay  in 
his  "mute"  practice — going  over  his  pieces  mentally.  We 
have  also  seen  that  Paderewski,  before  interpreting  a  new 
program,  often  lies  awake  at  night  mentally  rehearsing 
his  pieces  with  every  detail  of  technic  and  expression.  He 
then  feels  sure  of  himself  and  knows  that  his  memory  will 
not  fail  him,  even  if  he  should  be  tired.  A  better  way 
still  would  be  to  go  over  the  program  mentally  on  the 
morning  of  the  concert,  or  the  day  before;  for  it  is  in  the 


4i6  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

morning  that  the  memory  is  particularly  fresh  and  reliable. 
and  that  impressions  are  most  firmly  fixed  in  it. 

Opera  singers  have  to  be  actors,  too.  The  greatest  of 
modern  actors,  Salvini,  once  said:  "Nothing  is  left  to  the 
moment.  I  may  act  no  scene  twice  alike;  but  every  detail, 
every  move,  is  thought  out  before  I  do  it,  and  is  the  outcome 
of  sleepless  nights."  ~^ 

Harold  Bauer  says  he  encourages  his  pupils  "to  do  as 
much  work  as  possible  away  from  the  instrument."  "The 
moving  of  the  fingers,"  says  Fannie  Bloomfield  Zeisler,  "is 
not  practising,  for  in  piano  work  the  fingers  accomplish  one- 
fourth  and  the  brain  three-fourths  of  the  result." 

D'Albert,  following  Kalkbrenner,  advises  pupils  to  read 
a  book  while  doing  their  finger  exercises;  but  this  practice 
must  be  condemned.  Even  athletes  know  that  mere 
mechanical  bending  and  stretching  of  the  limbs  does  not 
strengthen  the  muscles,  but  that  there  must  be  behind  each 
movement  an  intense  wish  to  attain  such  a  result.  How 
much  more,  then,  is  an  alert,  attentive  mind  needed  in 
piano  playing,  where  the  muscular  movements  are  so 
much  more  complicated  and  subtle! 

A  poor  teacher  is  he  who  does  too  much  for  his  pupils. 
They  should  be  accustomed,  nay,  forced,  to  use  their  own 
minds  every  moment.  The  best  way  to  do  this — and  at  the 
same  time  to  mitigate  the  monotony  of  technical  practice — 
is  to  give  them  a  mere  skeleton  of  the  exercises,  compelling 
them  to  fill  out  the  details  themselves.  They  should  be 
made  to  try  to  find  the  correct  pace  for  each  piece  unaided, 
to  study  the  music  away  from  the  piano;  in  short,  to 
"spiritualize  the  technical  practice." 

"If  there  are  still  persons  who  think  that  long  hours  of 
practising  tend  to  stupefy  the  mind,  it  is  because  they  have 
not  learned  to  use  the  mind  while  exercising."  * 

*  Methodik  des  Klavier spiels.  Von  Xaver  Scharwenka  und  August 
Spanuth.  Breitkopf  &  Hartel.  A  book  for  teachers  and  students  who 
wish  to  keep  abreast  of  the  times. 


THE  SHORT  CUT  TO   SUCCESS         417 

If  in  the  vast  army  of  players  there  were  more  who  knew 
how  to  practise,  more  would  attain  to  the  rank  of  colonels 
and  generals. 

The  engagement  of  a  cheap,  second-rate  teacher  may 
prove  fatal  to  the  pupil's  chances,  because  a  certain  attitude 
of  attention,  of  using  the  mind,  must  be  taught  from  the 
very  first  lesson. 

The  important  thing  is  not  the  amount  of  "hard  work," 
but  the  way  it  is  done.  "It  is  better  to  practise  an  hour 
daily,  with  your  thoughts  concentrated  on  your  work,  than 
to  practise  five  hours  with  your  thoughts  rambling." 

"You  should  read  much  music;  this  is  most  useful  in 
sharpening  the  mind's  ear,"  wrote  Schumann.  "Never 
play  a  piece  until  you  have  thus  heard  it  inwardly.  For 
this  purpose  I  should  commend  to  you  particularly  the  320 
chorals  and  the  ' well- tempered  Clavichord'  of  Bach." 

The  fugues  of  Bach,  the  Etudes  of  Chopin,  Liszt,  and 
Rubinstein,  entertain  and  educate  the  mind  while  providing 
an  unsurpassed  sporting  ground  for  nimble  fingers. 

In  all  work,  says  Edison,  "  the  chief  factor  of  success  is 
the  power  oj  sticking  to  a  thing. ^^  It  is  because  that  power 
is  so  rare  that  there  is  always,  in  every  science,  art,  and 
occupation,  "room  at  the  top."  "For  all  the  $3,000  and 
$4,000  positions,"  Edison  added,  "there  are  many  capable 
candidates,  but  when  it  comes  to  the  $10,000,  $15,000,  and 
$20,000  positions,  it  is  very  hard  to  find  the  right  man. 
Accordingly,  at  the  present  time  many  important  high- 
salaried  positions  are  vac^-nt  for  want  of  enough  capable 
scientists." 

Is  not  the  same  painfully  true  of  music?  Are  not  the 
operatic  managers  of  America  and  Europe  in  despair  be- 
cause of  the  scarcity  of  the  $20,000  and  the  $100,000 
singers?  And  why  are  these  singers  so  scarce?  Because 
so  few  students  use  their  minds.  The  "  power  of  sticking 
to  a  thing"  is  mental;  it  is  called  will  power,  and  few 


4i8  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

students  have  it.  Thousands  of  them  start  in  with  the 
determination  to  do  their  best;  but  very,  very  few  "stick 
to  it."  They  get  good  advice,  they  know  what  to  do,  but 
they  won't  do  it.  In  the  despairing  words  of  EmiHe 
Frances  Bauer: 

"Teachers  of  the  piano  and  voice  will  say  frankly:  *I 
cannot  get  my  pupils  to  study  harmony;  they  do  not  feel 
the  necessity  of  it,  and  they  won't.'  They  won't!  That 
is  the  sum  and  substance  of  it.  And  the  vocal  students 
wonH  study  languages,  and  they  wonH  read  good  literature, 
and  they  wonH  study  dramatic  action,  and  they  wonH  go 
to  hear  good  music,  even  though  they  could  hear  many  things 
of  an  educative  nature  without  paying  for  them.  What 
they  will  do  is  to  tell  you  how  the  managers  won't  work  for 
them,  and  how  the  public  won't  encourage  them,  and  how 
much  fault  they  find  with  Mme.  Destinn  and  with  Mme. 
Sembrich  and  with  Mary  Garden.  They  have  time  for  all 
this.  If  they  go  to  the  opera  they  do  not  go  to  learn  the 
great  things  and  the  good  things,  they  go  for  the  pleasure 
they  derive  from  telling  afterward  how  this  one  or  that  one 
was  off  the  pitch,  and  how  tired  they  are  of  others,  and  how 
badly  the  great  artists  sing  and  still  hold  their  own,  while 
struggling  young  artists  (?)  can't  get  a  hearing.  And 
music  in  this  country  will  never  be  in  a  better  condition 
than  it  is  until  students  take  themselves  differently." 

"  It  is  curious  to  reflect,"  says  the  New  York  Wor/c?,  "that 
two  prize-fighters  that  are  going  to  pummel  each  other  will 
devote  months  to  preparing  by  strict  diet  and  careful  syste- 
matic exercise,  by  developing  their  muscles,  and  scarcely 
any  man  is  willing  to  work  one-half  as  hard  to  develop  the 
mental  fibre  for  things  that  are  worth  while." 

The  main  object  of  a  musical  education,  as  of  all  educa- 
tion, is,  in  the  words  of  ex- President  Eliot,  of  Harvard,  "  to 
learn  to  apply  one's  self,  to  learn  not  to  hear  any  sounds 
about  you  foreign  to  the  subject  in  hand,  not  to  know  what 


THE  SHORT  CUT  TO   SUCCESS         419 

is  going  on  in  the  room,  but  to  concentrate  every  power  on 
the  task  of  the  instant,  or  on  the  idea  you  want  to  grasp, 
or  on  the  thing  you  want  to  make."  The  power  to  do  this 
is  will  power.     Even  a  frog  may  have  it.     Why  not  you  ? 

Two  frogs  once  fell  into  a  pail  of  cream.  One  of  them 
said,  "  I  sink,  I  die."  The  other  said,  "  Cheer  up,  you  duf- 
fer, keep  kicking,  you  don't  know  what  may  turn  up."  By 
morning  they  discovered  that  they  had  churned  the  cream 
into  butter;  they  crawled  on  the  butter  and  jumped  out. 

Will  power  is  needed  not  only  for  the  purpose  of  con- 
centrating the  attention  on  one  thing  at  a  time,  but  for 
refusing  tempting  offers  at  a  time  when  it  would  be 
suicidal  to  accept  them.  Reginald  de  Koven  once  wrote 
an  article  in  which  he  complained  of  the  difficulty  of  finding 
competent  singers  for  operetta  companies.  He  referred  to 
some  organizations  which  could  not  start  out  for  this  reason 
and  to  others  that  for  the  same  reason  failed  on  the  road. 
"Just  think,"  he  adds,  "of  pupils,  after  six  months'  study, 
going  out  and  making  from  $125  to  $175  a  week."  Such 
offers  must  be  very  tempting,  indeed,  but  what  happens 
to  the  girl  who,  after  insufficient  training,  accepts  one  of 
them  ?  Why  do  so  many  American  girls  lose  the  bloom  of 
their  voices  so  soon  ? 

Let  me  answer  these  questions,  Yankee  fashion,  by 
asking  another.  Why  do  girls  among  peasants  lose  their 
beauty  at  so  early  an  age?  Because  they  use  up  their 
vitality  prematurely  by  incessant  drudgery  and  too  early 
marriage.  So  it  is  with  the  young  voices.  They  are  sub- 
jected to  the  strain  of  nightly  performances,  to  which  often 
the  fatigues  of  daily  travel  are  added,  and  the  result  is  that 
they  age  and  break  down  at  a  time  when  they  ought  to  be 
at  their  best.  Such  opera  singers  are  too  much  in  a  hurry. 
Too  much  in  a  hurry,  also,  are  most  American  students. 
Leschetizky  once  said:  "The  Americans  have  amazing 
powers  of  acquiring  knowledge.     In  that  respect  they  are 


420  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

my  best  pupils.  They  have  quickness  of  apprehension, 
keenness  of  insight,  and  abihty  for  practical  application. 
They  are  unswervingly  industrious.  But  their  main  fault 
is  their  extreme  hurry.  They  come  to  Europe  in  a  hurry, 
they  want  to  learn  everything  in  a  hurry,  they  complete 
their  studies  in  a  hurry,  and  they  return  home  in  a  hurry. 
Hurry  is  the  curse  of  art  in  your  country.  In  business  it 
means  progress;  in  music,  superficiality." 

Mary  Garden  says:  "Patience,  incessant  work,  ability 
to  seize  an  opportunity  and  make  the  most  of  it,  together 
with  some  power  of  interesting  an  audience  so  as  to  hold 
a  position  once  gained — these  are  the  things  that  make 
success." 

Tetrazzini  had  been  before  the  public  fifteen  years  before 
she  made  her  popular  success  in  London  and  New  York. 
As  Goethe  said: 

Nicht  Wissenschaft  und  Kunst  allein, 
Geduld  will  bei  dem  Werke  sein. 

Be  patient!  Before  you  face  an  audience,  learn  not  only 
to  play  or  sing,  but  to  he  a  musician — to  know  as  much  as 
possible  about  harmony,  counterpoint,  rhythm,  musical 
structure,  and  history.  W.  F.  Apthorp  once  described  a 
rehearsal,  held  by  Theodore  Thomas,  of  Beethoven's 
Missa  Solennis.  In  the  quartet  there  were  four  well- 
known  singers,  but  three  of  them  just  managed  to  scrape 
through  by  the  skin  of  their  teeth.  Georg  Henschel,  on 
the  contrary,  "  sang  as  easily  and  with  as  much  freedom  as 
if  he  had  been  singing  a  simple  sheet  ballad,  and  made  a 
real  performance  of  his  part.  You  see,  he  was  a  musician^ 
and  the  music  had  no  difficulties  for  him.  Giuseppe 
Campanari  once  told  me  that  he  would  not,  for  the  world, 
have  foregone  his  several  years'  experience  as  'cellist  in 
the  Boston  Symphony  Orchestra.  *That  musical  experi- 
ence enables  me  now  to  sing  easily  what  bothers  many  of 


TEMPERAMENT  AND  PERSONALITY    421 

my  colleagues  on  the  stage  not  a  little;   difficult  rhythms 
and  intervals  do  not  trouble  me  at  all!'  " 

The  "  Short  Cut  to  Success"  may  seem  a  rather  long  one, 
after  all.  True;  but  if  you  aim  at  the  summit  it  is  not  only 
the  shortest  road  but  the  only  one. 

Temperament,  Personality,  Magnetism,  Expression 

Can  temperament  be  imparted  and  acquired?  The 
general  opinion  is  that  it  cannot;  but  it  can  if  you  know 
how. 

A  young  girl  was  studying  a  hunting  song  for  the  piano. 
She  was  an  intelligent  and  painstaking  student,  but  her 
playing  was  lifeless  and  mechanical.  Luckily,  she  had  a 
teacher  who  used  her  mind.  This  teacher,  Maggie 
Wheeler  Ross,  relates,  in  The  Etude,  what  she  did  to  wake 
up  this  girl's  mind.  She  gave  her  mental  pictures  of  the 
chase,  made  her  read  the  Canto,  "The  Chase,"  from  the 
Lady  of  the  Lake,  and  memorize  and  recite  portions  of  it. 
She  filled  her,  in  other  ways,  full  of  the  hare -and-hound 
spirit,  and  soon  the  girl  "  had  the  swing  and  lilt  of  the  left- 
hand  movement  of  her  piece,  and  she  told  me  with  almost 
the  life  and  enthusiasm  of  a  true  sportsman  that  she 
imagined  that  she  heard  the  bray  of  the  horns,  the  bellow 
of  the  hounds,  the  call  of  the  huntsman,  and  the  clatter 
of  the  horses'  feet  every  time  she  played  the  piece.  Her 
performance  showed  this.  Her  eyes  would  sparkle  and 
her  cheeks  would  glow,  and  it  was  evident  that  here  was 
genuine  musical  delight." 

In  this  way  a  bright  teacher  practically  created  a  tem- 
perament; and  in  such  ways  many  a  seemingly  dull  player 
could  be  made  emotional  and  interesting,  having  herself 
become  interested  and  enthusiastic.  The  girl  referred  to 
entered  at  last  into  the  real  spirit  of  the  music,  and  who- 
ever does  that  is  an  artist.     When  an  artist  sings  a  ballad 


422  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

as  if  he  had  been  an  eye-witness  of  the  tragic  or  comic 
incidents  related  in  it,  he  shows  temperament. 

If  you  can  thrill  your  hearers  with  a  simple  piece  of  slow 
music,  you  have  temperament.  In  that  case  you  will  feel 
the  thrill  yourself.  No  one  should  try  to  become  a  public 
performer  unless  he  is  occasionally  moved  to  tears  by  his 
own  playing  or  singing.  The  members  of  Anton  Seidl's^ 
olrchestra  say  that  when  he  conducted  an  emotional  work 
like  Tchaikovsky's  Pathetic  Symphony ^  the  tears  used  to 
roll  down  his  cheeks.  The  audience  could  not  see  this, 
but  it  felt  what  he  felt;  and  when  Seidl  died,  the  most 
temperamental  of  all  orchestral  and  operatic  interpreters 
passed  from  this  world. 

It  is  related  of  Antoinette  Sterling  that  as  her  art  matured 
her  chief  aim  became  more  and  more  to  touch  and  move 
her  hearers.  "  More  heart  and  less  art,^^  became  her  maxim; 
and,  as  an  English  journalist  remarked,  there  could  be  "no 
question  as  to  the  extraordinary  power  and  magnetism  of 
her  singing." 

The  greatest  of  living  American  violinists,  and  the  great- 
est and  most  temperamental  and  successful  violinist  of 
her  sex  anywhere,  is  Maud  Powell.  On  being  asked  if  the 
financial  rewards  of  a  "career"  are  commensurate  with  the 
outlay  of  talent,  time,  sacrifices,  and  cost  of  education,  she 
answered:  "In  rare  cases,  yes;  generally,  decidedly  no. 
If  one  has  the  strength  of  an  Amazon  and  can  supplement 
the  work  with  teaching,  working  longer  and  harder  than 
any  laboring  man  ever  dreamed  of  doing,  or  if  there  is  a 
certain  indefinable  something  called  magnetism  in  your 
personality,  which  wins  your  way  irrespective  of  your 
work,  then  yes,  the  game  may  pay.  Let  me  tell  you, 
though,  that  the  world  is  full  of  artists  and  musicians  whose 
talent  and  ability  command  the  deepest  reverence,  who, 
nevertheless,  cannot  swell  box-office  receipts  by  a  single 
dollar  for  lack  of  that  illusive  quality  of  magnetism.     The 


TEMPERAMENT  AND   PERSONALITY    423 

great  public  is  moved  by  human  qualities,  more  than  by  art 
qualities.  So  suppose  you  spend  your  youth  and  early 
womanhood  in  the  sweatshop  of  art,  and  come  forth  into 
the  light  of  public  work  well  equipped  technically  and 
artistically,  only  to  find  yourself  gloriously  snubbed  by  the 
public  because  you  are  aloof  and  leave  them  cold — where 
is  your  j&nancial  reward  then?" 

Miss  Powell  touches  on  an  important  point  in  intimating 
that  the  "magnetism"  to  which  so  many  musicians  owe 
much  of  their  success  is  a  human  rather  than  a  purely 
artistic  quality.  Think  of  Paganini,  Liszt,  Paderewski, 
for  example.  The  world  wants  a  musician  to  be  different 
from  others,  to  have  individuality,  personality;  and  this 
must  show  itself  in  personal  (human)  ways  as  well  as  in 
unique  "readings"  of  compositions. 

You  should  have  something  about  both  your  personality 
and  your  interpretation  that  no  one  else  has;  if  you  have, 
your  chances  of  success  are  much  improved.  Master  some 
branch  more  thoroughly  than  any  one  else,  and  you  need 
not  worry.  It  has  been  well  said  that  "  if  a  man  make  but 
a  mouse-trap  better  than  his  fellows,  though  he  makes  his 
tent  in  the  wilderness,  the  world  will  beat  a  path  to  his 
door." 

Success  is  possible  without  personal  magnetism  (attrac- 
tiveness, winsomeness),  provided  there  is  a  great  deal  of 
artistic  temperament  to  compensate  for  its  absence.  If 
you  can  make  the  music  you  play  or  sing  move  an  audience 
so  deeply  that  it  will  forget  even  your  personality,  you  are 
an  artist  of  the  highest  type. 

A  colorature  singer  can  also  "  move  an  audience  "  to  great 
enthusiasm,  although  she  may  not  have  a  trace  of  tempera- 
ment. But  it  is  obvious  that  in  this  case  the  appeal  is 
merely  to  the  senses,  not  to  the  deeper  human  and  esthetic 
feelings.     To  stir  those,  you  need  temperament. 

In  its  widest  denotation,  temperament  includes  every- 


424  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

thing  that  relates  to  expression,  and  expression  in  music 
has  much  in  common  with  eloquence,  which  is  defined  as 
"impassioned  and  convincing  utterance"  and  "expression 
of  emotion." 

In  a  Boston  newspaper  I  once  read  about  a  class  of 
Normal  School  girls  who  had  "an  evening  with  Mark 
Twain."  A  number  of  selections  were  read  and  recited, 
but  only  one  of  the  girls  succeeded  in  making  anybody 
laugh !  The  others  evidently  lacked  the  gift  of  expression. 
No  doubt  they  had  been  taught  to  read  correctly — to  pro- 
nounce the  words  with  the  right  accents,  to  raise  their 
voices — probably  heautijul  voices — at  the  interrogation 
points,  to  heed  the  commas  and  periods,  the  colons  and 
semicolons;  and  yet  they  missed  fire  because  they  were 
not  interesting.  Mark  Twain  himself,  reciting  these  selec- 
tions, would  have  convulsed  everybody  with  laughter. 
And  five  minutes  later,  with  a  pathetic  story,  he  would  have 
moved  every  one  to  tears — simply  because  he  has  magnet- 
ism, personality,  temperament,  expression. 

The  best  song  ever  written  can  be  sung  correctly  as  to 
notes  and  pitch  and  pace  and  loudness,  yet  so  dully  that 
every  one  is  glad  when  it  is  over,  while  another  singer 
can,  with  the  same  song,  make  every  one  clamor  for  a 
repetition.  The  difference  between  the  two  defines  the 
word  expression:  it  is  that  which  gives  life  and  soul  to 
music. 

Omit  expression  and  you  have  mere  juggling  with  tones. 
Music  begins  where  technic  ends.  And  yet  most  music 
teachers  are  so  absorbed  with  technical  studies  that  they 
pay  no  attention  whatever  to  expression !  Is  it  a  wonder  so 
few  of  their  pupils  succeed  ? 

Ever  since  the  time  of  Beethoven  the  composers  have 
taken  more  and  more  pains  to  indicate  by  means  of  ex- 
pression-marks how  their  music  ought  to  be  played  in  order 
to  make  the  deepest  impression  on  the  hearers.    They 


TEMPERAMENT  AND  PERSONALITY    425 

indicate  various  degrees  of  loudness,  from  the  whispering 
pianissimos  to  the  loudest  fortissimos ;  various  degrees  of 
rapidity,  from  the  slowest  largo  to  the  liveliest  prestissimo. 
These,  with  the  various  marks  for  accent  or  stress,  and 
indications  for  phrasing  (the  correct  and  intelligible 
"reading"  of  a  musical  thought),  constitute  the  four  chief 
elements  of  musical  expression.  Mistakes  in  any  of  them 
may  distort  a  piece  as  ludicrously  as  a  convex  mirror  cari- 
catures your  face  and  form.  ^ 

Yet  it  is  possible  to  perform  a  piece  with  attention  to 
all  the  printed  expression-marks  and  yet  sing,  play,  or 
conduct  without  real  expression — without  kindling  the 
fire  of  enthusiasm.  And  this  brings  us  to  the  most  impor- 
tant point  in  this  whole  volume. 

What  is  the  inner  secret  of  musical  expression  ?  We  can 
learn  it  from  savages  and  peasants.  Missionaries  and  ex- 
plorers have  recorded  their  impressions  of  the  music  made 
by  the  wild  men  of  Africa,  America,  Australia;  they  tell  of 
occasions  when  the  deepest  emotion  is  aroused  by  their 
singing  and  playing,  when  tears  are  shed  until  the  passion- 
ate excitement  becomes  almost  tumultuous.  These  primi- 
tive men  and  women  do  not  make  music  to  show  off  their 
technical  skill  or  high  notes,  or  for  money  or  for  applause; 
they  make  it  because  they  cannot  help  it;  it  is  the  natural 
utterance  oj  their  jeelings — the  expression  of  their  individ- 
ual, tribal,  and  religious  emotions. 

Some  years  ago,  after  spending  three  months  in  a  Swiss 
hospital,  weakened  by  typhoid  fever,  I  followed  my  doctor's 
advice  and  dwelt  a  few  weeks  on  the  borders  of  the  Italian 
lakes.  One  evening,  at  Locarno,  I  took  a  walk  along  the 
shore  of  Lago  Maggiore  with  the  chief  forester  of  Switzer- 
land, who  had  been  in  the  hospital  with  me.  Presently, 
from  a  parapet  above  us,  came  the  sound  of  a  voice  angelic 
in  sweetness,  singing  with  charming  expression  an  artless 
folk  song.    We  stood  spellbound,  and  listened  for  half  an 


426  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

hour  to  this  unpremeditated  solo.  We  had  both  heard 
Patti,  but  agreed  that  Patti  never  sang  with  such  genuine 
feeling.  Our  curiosity  was  aroused  and  we  mounted  the 
steps  to  see  who  the  great  artist  might  be.  She  proved  to 
be  a  plain  peasant  woman,  who  blushed  and  looked  uncom- 
fortable when  she  found  out  that  she  had  had  other  lis- 
teners besides  the  baby  in  the  cradle  by  her  side.  An 
unhappy  thought  came  into  the  forester's  head.  He  offered 
the  woman  several  francs  if  she  would  come  down  to  our 
hotel  and  sing  there  for  us.  She  blushed  again  and  pro- 
tested that  she  could  not  sing;  but  finally  she  was  per- 
suaded, and  a  few  evenings  later  she  appeared  at  the  hotel 
and  sang  several  pieces  there.  But,  of  course,  she  felt 
out  of  place  and  nervous,  the  audience  frightened  her,  her 
voice  trembled  and  lost  its  charm,  and  of  expression  there 
was  not  a  trace.  Her  song  was  no  longer  the  natural 
utterance  of  her  feelings. 

A  few  years  later,  in  New  York,  a  friend  invited  me  to 
his  house  one  evening.  Among  the  guests  was  a  young 
girl  who  had  spent  several  years  in  Germany  studying  the 
piano,  and  who  wanted  to  make  her  d^but  (with  dreams 
of  a  brilliant  career  as  concert-pianist)  in  New  York.  She 
begged  my  permission  to  play  something  for  me,  and,  with- 
out ^explanation  or  apology,  sat  down  and — would  you 
believe  it  ? — played  through  a  whole  long  concerto,  the  solo 
part  alone,  without  accompaniment!  Her  one  idea  was 
to  impress  me  with  her  "accomplishment,"  but  the  only 
thing  she  did  impress  on  me  was  that  she  was  nothing  but  a 
bundle  of  vanity  and  ambition.  She  played  in  public  and 
was,  of  course,  a  dismal  failure. 

After  being  a  musical  critic  for  nearly  three  decades,  I 
confess  that  I  am  deathly  tired  of  concerts  and  operas, 
and  recitals  of  all  descriptions.  I  long  more  and  more  for 
expression,  but  seldom  get  it  unless  a  great  leader  like 
Seidl  conducts,  or  a  great  pianist  like  Paderewski  plays,  or 


TEMPERAMENT  AND   PERSONALITY    427 

a  Geraldine  Farrar  sings  and  acts.  I  long  to  go  among 
savages  and  hear  them  sing  their  thrilling  war  songs  or 
listen  to  their  impassioned  drum  solos.  I  hate  these  con- 
servatory pianists  with  their  finicky  "touch"  and  "meth- 
ods" and  "pearling  scales," 'and  technical  abominations; 
I  detest  those  singers  of  the  "  Italian  school"  whose  one  idea 
is  to  sing  notes  loud,  high,  and  shrill,  that  will  be  sure  to 
arouse  "thunders  of  applause."  Sometimes  I  come  home 
from  a  long  recital  so  hungry  for  real  music  that  I  have  to 
sit  down  at  my  Steinway  and  play  a  Chopin  prelude  or  a 
Grieg  song  to  appease  the  craving. 

Every  student  of  music  ought  to  read  the  Introduction 
to  The  Peasant  Songs  of  Great  Russia.^  The  following 
paragraph  is  particularly  significant:  "It  is  just  because 
the  whole  power  of  the  peasant  song  lies  in  jree  improvisa- 
tion that  the  practised  execution  of  a  folk  song  even  by  the 
best  artists  cannot  compare  with  the  genuine  peasant  per- 
formance. The  latter  have  always  an  advantage  which  we 
can  only  acquire  by  putting  great  strain  on  ourselves. 
The  peasants  improvise  the  song,  while  we  learn  it  from 
music.  In  the  performance  of  the  peasants  the  song 
flows  in  a  continuous  stream;  in  our  singing  the  division 
into  bars  and  notes  is  always  apparent. "j*  The  peasant 
'tells'  his  song  in  protracted  musical  speech — we  sing 
melody,  frequently  without  knowing  the  words,  and  always 
very  badly  pronouncing  them.  The  peasant  loves  his  song, 
is  enraptured  by  it — we  condescend  to  it.  I  am  convinced 
that,  until  we  live  in  our  song,  as  every  true  artist  lives  in 
his  work,  our  execution  will  continue  to  be  weak  and  pale." 

Liszt  tells  us,  in  his  book  on  the  Hungarian  gypsies,  that 
they  have  no  notation  for  their  music.  "Nor,"  he  adds, 
"would  the  dead  letter  of  their  music  give  us  an  idea  of 

*  By  Eugenie  Lineff.     London:  David  Nutt. 

t  Read  Wagner's  remarks,  in  his  essay  on  Tannh'duser,  on  the  necessity 
of  ignoring  the  bar  lines  if  one  would  sing  with  expression. — H.  T.  F< 


428  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

the  vivacity  with  which  the  gypsy  virtuoso  executes  it,  of 
the  incessant  mobility  of  its  rhythms,  the  fiery  eloquence 
of  its  phrases,  the  expressive  accent  of  its  declamation." 
Their  art  is  a  perpetual  ]ree  improvisation — and  so  was 
Liszt's  art.     Extremes  meet.* 

Wagner,  as  just  stated,  counselled  his  artists  to  ignore  the 
division  of  music  into  regular  bars.  "After  the  singer  has 
completely  absorbed  my  intentions,"  he  added,  "let  him 
freely  follow  his  own  feelings,  even  to  the  physical  demands 
of  breathing  in  agitated  passages;  and  the  more  inde- 
pendent and  creative  his  emotional  abandon  makes  him,  the 
More  he  will  excite  my  admiration  and  wonder." 

How  far  all  this  takes  us  away,  not  from  expression 
itself — for  the  improvisational  style  of  singing  and  playing 
is  that  very  inner  secret  and  perfection  of  expression  we 
have  been  seeking  for — but  from  mere  printed  expression- 
marks,  which  are  only  a  crude  approximation  to  what  a 
great  artist  makes  of  a  piece !  As  a  rule,  even  these  are  not 
attended  to,  and  then  performers  wonder  why  high-class 
concerts  do  not  pay  as  well  as  vaudeville  and  musical 
comedy!  They  would  pay  equally  well  if  the  high-class 
music  were  as  adequately  interpreted  as  the  low-class 
usually  is.    There's  the  truth  in  a  nutshell. 

Tempo  Rubato,  Pedal,  and  Accentuation 

The  essence  of  the  improvisational  style  is  great  variety 
and  elasticity  of  pace.     Mozart  said  that  "the  most  neces- 

*  If  some  one  accidentally  discovered  a  treatise  on  piano  technic  by 
Liszt,  how  the  translators  would  pounce  on  and  the  publishers  fight  for 
it!  Yet  here  is  Liszt's  book  on  Hungarian  gypsy  music,  untranslated  and 
neglected,  though  from  it  teachers  and  pupils  could  learn  more  about  the 
soul  of  music — the  qualities  which  made  Calve  and  Paderewski,  the  De 
Reszkes  and  Seidl,  so  superlatively  successful — than  from  a  million 
"methods"  and  text-books.  The  stubborn  refusal  of  players  and  singers 
to  use  their  minds,  to  read  books  that  would  help  them  to  win  success,  is 
an  inexplicable  phenomenon. 


TEMPO   RUBATO   AND  PEDAL  429 

sary,  the  most  difficult,  and  the  main  thing  in  music  is  the 
tempo."  Grieg  once  wrote  to  me:  "Tempo  should  be 
in  the  blood.  If  it  is  not  there,  we  may  take  our  oath  on  it 
that  the  other  intentions  of  the  composer  also  will  be 
mutilated."  Other  great  masters  expressed  the  same 
opinion.  Wagner's  essay,  On  Conducting  (which  every 
student  must  read),  is  chiefly  a  treatise  on  modifications  of 
tempo,  or  what  is  usually  called  tempo  rubato.  As  this 
subject  was  discussed  at  some  length  in  the  chapter  on 
Chopin,  a  few  additional  remarks  must  suffice. 

Tempo  rubato,  as  used  by  great  artists,  is  simply  ap- 
plying in  details  the  instinctive  sense  of  tempo  required 
for  the  general  pace  of  a  piece.  To  be  a  great  player  you 
must  have  not  only  that  general  sense  for  the  right  pace 
which  Mozart  called  the  most  difficult  and  important  thing 
in  music,  but  also — what  is  still  more  difficult — an  instinct 
for  the  frequent  modifications  of  that  general  pace  in  a  given 
piece  or  movement.  The  player  or  conductor  must  note 
the  emotional  character  of  the  melody,  slightly  retard  the 
pace  if  it  becomes  sentimental  for  the  moment,  and  accel- 
erate it  if  it  becomes  particularly  cheerful. 

These  slight  changes  of  pace  in  a  piano  piece  affect  both 
hands.  The  dictum  that  "  the  left  hand  must  keep  strict 
time"  was  made,  not  by  Chopin,  but  by  Mozart,  in  whose 
music  it  does  no  harm.  But  since  Mozart's  day  all  music 
has  become  more  irregular  in  accent  and  tempo,  owing  to 
the  influence  of  Slavic  and  Hungarian  music,  in  which  the 
mood  (and  with  it  the  pace)  changes  frequently,  often 
abruptly.  To  play  such  music  (Chopin  and  Liszt  notably) 
with  a  metronomic  left  hand  is  to  commit  murder  in  the  first 
degree.  Nor  should  any  pianist  heed  the  ridiculous  but  oft- 
repeated  assertion  that  if  you  increase  the  speed  for  a  few 
bars  you  must  slow  up  for  a  few  bars  subsequently,  so  that 
the  whole  piece  will  last  just  as  many  seconds  as  if  you  had 
made  no  change  in  the  pace.    What  would  an  actor  say  if 


430  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

he  were  told  that  if  he  spoke  a  few  words  in  one  line  more 
slowly,  he  must  make  up  for  it  by  speaking  a  few  words 
in  the  next  line  faster?  Pianists  accept  these  maxrms 
vacantly.  Is  it  a  wonder  so  few  of  them  succeed?  Do 
use  your  brains! 

Music  is  becoming  more  and  more  subtle — an  art  of 
many  contrasting  shades  and  colors.  Corresponding  to 
the  growing  habit  of  making  slight  but  frequent  changes  in 
pace  is  the  disposition  to  make  greater,  more  gradual,  and 
more  frequent  variations  in  the  degree  of  loudness.  The 
volume  of  tone  in  piano-fortes  has  been  vastly  increased 
within  a  century — as  vastly,  in  proportion,  as  that  of  the 
orchestra.  Now,  the  greater  the  tone-volume,  the  greater 
also  are  the  possibilities  of  shading,  from  pianissimo  to 
fortissimo;  and  in  the  utilization  of  these  infinite  gradations 
of  tone  lies  one  of  the  greatest  advances  of  modern  music, 
one  of  the  main  avenues  to  success  for  an  up-to-date  musi- 
cian. Yet  there  are  plenty  of  pianists  who  play  forte  and 
fortissimo  all  the  time,  ignoring  entirely  the  tremendous 
importance  of  dynamic  contrast  as  a  means  of  musical 
expression  and  of  swaying  an  audience.  Mark  Hambourg 
would  be  a  much  greater  artist  if  he  could  restrain  his 
vehemence,  and  among  the  pianists  of  the  fair  sex  there 
are  altogether  too  many  Amazons  who  follow  the  noisy 
methods  of  the  British  suffragettes.  To  play  that  way  is 
like  dancing  on  a  bed  of  violets. 

"The  tree  with  a  thousand  leaves  can  brave  the  storm," 
says  Saint-Saens;  "but  what  is  left  of  a  flower  or  the 
wing  of  a  butterfly  after  it  has  been  bruised?" 

In  order  to  be  up  to  date,  a  musician  must  further  know 
how  to  benefit  by  the  fact  that  in  the  varying  of  tone-colors, 
also,  much  greater  facilities  are  at  his  disposal  than  the 
orchestras  and  pianos  of  former  times  provided.  Orches- 
tral conductors  do  not  neglect  their  opportunities;  pianists 
too  often  do.    In  Paderewski's  playing  nothing  fascinates 


TEMPO    RUBATO    AND    PEDAL  431 

his  audiences  more  than  the  diversity  of  exquisite  tone- 
colors  he  obtains  by  means  of  varied  touch  and  ingenious 
pedalling.  Rubinstein  called  the  pedal  the  soul  of  the 
piano-forte,  and  said:  "I  consider  the  art  of  properly 
using  the  pedal  as  the  most  difficult  problem  of  higher 
piano  playing.  If  we  have  not  yet  heard  the  piano  at  its 
best,  the  fault  possibly  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  has  not  been 
fully  understood  how  to  exhaust  the  capabilities  of  the 
pedal." 

In  view  of  the  importance  of  the  pedal,  and  the  fact  that 
without  it  no  distinctly  idiomatic  piano-forte  effect  is  com- 
plete, I  quite  agree  with  those  who  hold  that  the  study  of  it 
should  begin  in  the  pupil's  first  weeks.* 

Attention  to  accentuation  also  should  begin  with  the 
first  lessons. 

Has  it  ever  occurred  to  the  reader  to  ask  why  organ 
recitals  are  nearly  always  free  ?  The  organist  surely  has  a 
magnificent  instrument,  an  instrument  almost  as  rich  in 
tone-colors  as  an  orchestra  and  rivalling  it  in  the  power  of 
dynamic  shading  and  climaxing.  But  one  thing  it  lacks: 
the  power  of  accenting  individual  tones — and  that  makes 
all  the  difference  in  the  world.  The  pianist  has  that  power, 
and  we  pay  to  hear  him.  Think  that  over,  then  study  the 
subtle  emotional  art  of  accentuation,  and  your  success  as 
a  public  performer  will  be  in  proportion  to  your  success  in 
mastering  that  art. 

One  of  the  principal  rules  of  musical  expression  is  that 

*  In  the  current  piano-forte  "methods"  the  pedal  receives  much  too 
little  attention.  There  are,  however,  fortunately,  several  special  publica- 
tions from  which  students  can  get  invaluable  assistance.  The  best  of 
these  is  The  Pedals  of  the  Pianoforte,  by  Hans  Schmitt,  who  believes  that 
the  use  of  the  pedal  should  begin  early.  The  increased  beauty  of  tone 
which  is  obtained  by  its  use  helps  to  make  piano  practice  more  attractive. 
Other  books  on  this  subject  have  been  written  by  Louis  Koehler,  John  A. 
Preston,  Hugh  A.  Kelso,  Albert  F.  Venino.  See  also  Riemann's  Com- 
parative Pianoforte  School,  Kullak's  The  Esthetics  of  Pianoforte  Playing, 
and  the  remarks  in  the  present  volume,  pp.  317,  428-432. 


432  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

discords  must  be  emphasized  to  make  them  intelligible  and 
poignant;*  also,  modulations.  Not  to  emphasize  discords 
is  to  produce  an  uncanny,  mysterious  impression,  which  in 
some  cases  is  desired.  But  the  main  function  of  accentua- 
tion is  to  make  the  melody  come  out  clearly  every  moment, 
like  a  red  thread  in  the  polyphonic  web  of  harmonies.  If 
the  average  hearer  loses  that  thread,  you  might  as  well  talk 
to  him  in  Sanscrit  as  try  to  make  him  comprehend  and 
enjoy  your  playing. 

Wagner  revolutionized  orchestral  interpretation  by 
teaching  conductors  always  to  reveal  the  red  string  of  the 
melos. 

Singing  Distinctly  and  in  English 

Singers  have  something  corresponding  to  the  pianist's 
endless  variety  of  accents  in  the  infinitely  diversified  in- 
flections and  modulations  of  the  voice.  A  single  word  like 
*' indeed"  can  be  spoken  in  such  an  indifferent  way  as  to 
betray  no  feeling  at  all;  but  it  can  also  be  made  to  express 
surprise,  or  approval,  or  doubt,  or  scorn,  or  sarcasm,  or  a 
dozen  other  states  of  mind  by  simply  changing  the  inflection 
of  the  voice — its  pitch,  tone  quality,  and  emphasis.  If  this 
is  true  of  ordinary  speech,  how  much  more  so  of  music, 
the  very  essence  of  which  lies  in  changes  of  pitch  and  tone 
and  accent! 

Unfortunately,  nine  singers  in  every  ten  forfeit  this  ad- 
vantage over  mere  speech  by  their  slovenly  enunciation, 
which  makes  it  impossible  for  the  hearers  to  tell  what  they 
are  singing  about.  *'  Inarticulate  smudges  of  sound  "  is  the 
happy  phrase  coined  by,  Mrs.  Wodehouse  for  the  words 
that  issue  from  the  mouths  of  most  singers;  and  Mr. 
Hackett  recorded  "Ye  tnightly  pi  tchmy  moving  ten  ta 
da  ysmar  chneare  rome"  as  one  singer's  way  of  saying, 

*  Read  the  page  on  Ausdruck,  in  Riemann's  Musik-Lexicon. 


SINGING  DISTINCTLY  433 

"  Yet  nightly  pitch  my  moving  tent  a  day's  march  nearer 
home." 

Such  atrocities  are  largely  the  result  of  the  old  custom  of 
teaching  pupils  to  sing  songs  in  languages  of  which  they 
knew  not  the  meaning — a  custom  that  made  them  indiffer- 
ent to  all  texts,  whether  poems  or  opera  librettos. 

If  you  wish  to  be  up  to  date,  remember  that  (unless  you 
are  a  sensational  colorature  singer)  the  time  is  past  when 
it  made  little  or  no  difference  how  slovenly  your  enunciation 
was,  provided  you  emitted  beautiful  tones.  In  the  modern 
opera  and  lied,  distinct  enunciation  is  half  the  battle  won, 
because  it  enables  the  audience  to  enjoy  the  fun  or  the 
pathos  of  the  lines  as  well  as  the  music,  and  creates 
"atmosphere."  Learn  the  rare  art  of  singing  words  as 
distinctly  as  you  speak  them,  and  you  will  be  surprised  at 
the  difference  in  your  reception  by  the  public  and  its 
willingness  to  pardon  faults  in  your  vocalization. 

Recitals  would  be  more  frequently  successful  if  the  sing- 
ers, furthermore,  used  a  language  every  hearer  can  under- 
stand. It  is  still  assumed  by  most  performers  that  the 
English  language  is  ill-suited  for  song;  but  Louis  Arthur 
Russell  has  shown  in  a  most  admirable  and  important  little 
book  *  that  it  is  the  vocalists  who  are  at  fault;  they  have 
not  learned  the  language.  He  makes  it  clear  that  the 
difficulty  of  English  is  not  due  to  the  sounds  in  themselves, 
but  to  the  many  sounds,  the  closely  allied  vowel-colors,  the 
finer  shades  with  which  our  language  abounds.  The 
English  language,  he  maintains,  is  better  adapted  to  the 
requirements  of  expression,  especially  in  the  finer  and  more 
sensitive  lines,  than  other  languages.  ''The  singer  who 
has  mastered  English  may  well,"  he  says,  "laugh  at  him 
who  can  sing  only  in  a  simpler  language,  like  Italian." 

*  English  Diction  for  Singers  and  Speakers.     Oliver  Ditson  Co. 


434  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 


Should  Americans  Study  Abroad? 

The  goal  of  every  musician  in  Europe  is  an  engagement 
in  America.  The  goal  of  every  music  student  in  America 
is  a  year  or  more  in  Europe.  Are  there  valid  reason's  for 
this  state  of  affairs? 

Undoubtedly,  singers  and  players  earn  more  in  America 
than  they  do  in  Europe,  which  is  sufficient  reason  for  their 
wanting  to  visit  us.  But  how  about  the  students  ?  Why 
are  they  so  eager  to  go  to  Europe?  An  analysis  of  their 
state  of  mind  shows  that  there  are  seven  reasons  why  they 
want  to  cross  the  Atlantic:  they  believe  that  they  can  find 
better  teachers  in  Europe;  that  there  is  more  ''musical 
atmosphere"  over  there;  that  they  will  hear  more  good 
music,  and  for  less  money;  that  their  educational  and 
general  expenses  will  be  lower;  that  they  will  gain  "pres- 
tige"; that  there  are  better  chances  for  a  debut  on  the 
other  side;  and  that  a  trip  to  Europe  has  an  educational 
value  in  itself. 

Probably,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  if  things  were  sifted 
to  the  bottom,  it  would  be  found  that  what  chiefly  prompts 
our  students  is  the  desire  to  travel  and  see  Europe.  That 
in  itself  is  a  most  laudable  purpose,  but  it  should  not  be 
pursued  on  the  alleged  ground  that  the  opportunities  for 
musical  culture  and  advancement  are  not  as  good  in  Amer- 
ica as  in  Europe. 

There  are  in  this  country  just  as  good  teachers  of  the 
voice,  the  violin,  and  the  piano  as  in  Italy,  France,  or 
Germany,  and  the  proportion  of  incompetents  and  charla- 
tans is  about  the  same  on  both  continents.  If  Europe  has 
more  of  the  best  teachers  than  we  have,  this  is  due  partly 
to  the  fact  that  they  are  supported  chiefly  by  American 
students,  who  want  them  to  be  located  there  and  not  at 
home.    I  could  give  the  names  of  nearly  a  dozen  prominent 


SHOULD  AMERICANS  STUDY  ABROAD?    435 

teachers  who  left  America  to  settle  in  Berlin  because, 
evidently,  their  pupils  wanted  to  take  lessons  of  them  there ! 
Godowsky  is  one  of  them.  Many  American  girls  and 
youths  go  to  Berlin  without  knowing  a  dozen  words  of 
German.  These,  naturally,  crowd  the  studios  of  the 
teachers  from  America,  who  thus  reap  a  rich  harvest.  It  is 
estimated  that  in  Berlin  alone  music  students  from  the 
United  States  spend  over  a  million  dollars  a  year. 

America  has  a  few  good  conservatories,  but  only  one  or 
two  that  can  be  compared  to  the  best  high  schools  of  music 
in  Europe.  A  conservatory  presents  some  advantages  over 
private  instruction  in  offering  under  one  roof  all  the  diverse 
branches— ^including  languages  and  the  very  important 
history  of  music — which  go  toward  making  a  full-fledged 
performer.  They  also  counteract  the  American  foible  of 
flitting  from  teacher  to  teacher.  Discipline — training  to 
obedience — seems  difficult  to  establish  in  American  con- 
servatories, especially  in  the  large  cities.  Pupils  who  are 
subjected  to  it  leave  and  go  elsewhere.  Abroad,  these 
same  pupils  prove  more  tractable. 

Foreign  teachers,  it  has  been  claimed,  are  better  on  the 
average  than  the  American  because  they  go  more  slowly. 
David  Bispham  says:  "The  great  old  Francesco  Lam- 
perti  used  to  worry  us  to  death,  but  in  the  end  he  taught 
us  to  sing." 

There  is  such  a  thing,  however,  as  going  too  slowly. 
Edith  Lynwood  Winn  puts  her  finger  on  the  weak  spot  of 
much  foreign  training.  The  teachers,  she  says,  do  not 
inquire  whether  the  pupils  come  to  prepare  for  the  concert 
stage,  the  quiet  town  teaching,  or  the  simple  life  of  a 
cultured  home.  "They  try  to  grind  us  all  out  after  one 
plan.  They  teach  the  same  concertos,  the  same  sonatas, 
and  the  same  etudes  year  after  year,  and  they  wonder  why 
we  Americans  tire  of  this  pedagogic  stuffing.  What  we 
Americans  do  not  get  in  Europe  is  practical  teaching.     A 


436  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

friend  of  mine  spent  one-half  year  in  the  Berlin  University 
studying  the  early  life  of  Goethe.  When  she  came  back 
to  America  she  knew  nothing  of  Goethe's  best  works. 
So  it  is  with  music  study  over  there.'' 

"There  is  no  exclusive  knowledge  across  the  big  pond 
which  we  do  not  possess,"  writes  Emil  Liebling;  "on  the 
contrary,  our  methods  are  more  practical,  condensed,  and 
concise,  and  we  obtain  far  better  results  in  less  time  than 
the  great  man  abroad,  who  takes  only  a  limited  number  of 
pupils  (which  is  rather  fortunate  for  the  rest).  But  then," 
he  adds  cynically,  "mundus  vult  decipi,  and  old  Barnum 
very  shrewdly  adapted  this  old  Latin  adage,  'the  world 
wants  to  be  swindled,'  to  modern  phraseology  and  his  own 
uses,  hence  his  success." 

"  Of  those  who  go  abroad  to  be  'finished'  there  are  many 
who  return  truly  in  that  condition,"  says  W.  Francis  Gates. 

Many  a  girl  is  sent  to  Europe  for  a  musical  education 
with  a  sum  of  money  that  would  be  considered  ludicrously 
inadequate  at  home,  under  the  impression  that  tuition  fees 
and  living  expenses  are  much  lower  abroad.  They  are  in 
small  towns,  but  in  the  large  cities,  where  the  great  teachers 
and  artists  congregate  and  the  great  performances  are 
given— in  London,  Paris,  Berlin,  Dresden,  Munich,  Vienna, 
Milan — one  cannot  live  for  less  than  in  American  cities 
of  similar  size.  The  great  teachers  abroad  charge  $5  to 
$10  for  a  short  lesson,  and  room  and  board  in  a" pension" 
are  not  under  $30  a  month.  One  of  the  best-known 
teachers  in  Berlin  refuses  to  take  pupils  who  have  not  an 
assured  allowance  of  at  least  $75  a  month.  Twelve  times 
$75  is  $900;  on  less  than  that  sum  a  year — better  call  it  a 
round  $1,000 — it  is  unwise  to  go  to  a  European  capital 
with  a  view  to  studying  with  the  best  teachers  and  hearing 
much  good  music — and  this  is  what  you  want  to  go  for, 
isn't  it? 

In  1906  the  American  consul  at  Milan,  Mr.  Dunning, 


SHOULD  AMERICANS  STUDY  ABROAD?    437 

sent  a  report  to  the  State  Department  at  Washington  in 
which  he  said  "Don't  come"  to  American  girls  about  to 
visit  Italy.  He  pointed  out  the  difficulties  that  confront 
them,  and  advised  that  no  American  girl  should  go  to 
Italy  for  a  musical  education  unless  she  has  from  $75  to 
$100  a  month  coming  to  her  regularly.  "Nearly  every- 
thing costs  as  much  as  it  does  at  home,"  he  added. 

Many  pitfalls  are  prepared  to  get  the  American  girl's 
money,  and  possessions  infinitely  more  valuable  than 
money.  In  this  respect,  however,  Italy  is  no  worse  than 
other  countries,  including  America.  It  is  astonishing  that 
so  many  American  parents  should  allow  their  daughters 
to  go  unattended  to  Europe;  but  no  more  astonishing  than 
that  they  should  not  realize  that  there  is  danger  at  home, 
too.  As  one  fully  conversant  with  the  situation  has  said: 
"  The  time  for  a  mother  to  begin  to  worry  is  not  when  the 
girl  is  ready  to  go  out  into  the  world,  it  is  when  the  girl  is 
beginning  her  studies.  Many  a  mother  will  go  on  at  a  rate 
of  six  hundred  words  a  minute  about  managers  and  the 
stage  and  all  that  sort  of  thing  after  she  has  permitted  her 
young  and  silly — mind  you,  silly — usually  silly — daughter 
to  go  unattended  to  the  studios  of  men  who  are  known  to 
be  utterly  and  absolutely  without  principle  or  conscience. 
If  she  has  come  out  of  her  study  days  as  guileless  as  she 
went  into  them,  there  is  no  use  of  losing  any  peace  of  mind 
about  the  experiences  she  will  meet  among  the  managers 
and  on  the  stage.  There  are  churches  in  New  York  and 
many  other  cities  where  the  attitude  of  some  members  of 
the  committee  is  of  such  an  offensive  nature  that  really 
modest  young  women  are  not  even  sent  to  apply  for  posi- 
tions by  such  agents  as  know  what  they  must  encounter." 

The  many  Americans  who  go  to  Italy  to  study  seem  to 
take  lessons  almost  entirely  of  private  teachers.  There  are 
six  conservatories  supported  by  the  government — at  Milan, 
Florence,  Rome,  Naples,  Palermo,  Parma.    The  largest 


438  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

and  best  of  these  is  the  Verdi  Conservatory  at  Milan;  yet 
in  1908  Elise  Lathrop  wrote,  in  Musical  America,  that  al- 
though it  is  open  absolutely  without  charge  to  sufficiently 
talented  students  of  any  nationality  whatsoever,  there  were 
at  that  time  no  North  Americans  enrolled  among  the 
pupils.  Most  Italian  students  get  their  lessons  free  at 
these  institutions,  or  else  a  contract  is  made  with  a  private 
teacher  ensuring  payment  for  lessons  after  the  pupil  has 
entered  upon  his  career.  Caruso  was  launched  on  the 
high  C's  in  this  way. 

Doubtless  there  are  still  in  Italy  teachers  who  have  pre- 
served the  traditions  of  singing  beautifully  {bel  canto); 
these,  however,  are  not  likely  to  know  how  to  teach  the 
dramatic  style  of  vocal  music  now  most  in  demand;  for 
this  Paris  and  the  German  cities  offer  better  opportunities. 

For  the  study  of  anything  except  operatic  singing  it  is 
not  advisable  to  go  to  Italy.  Oratorio  and  instrumental 
concerts  are  little  cultivated;  one  can  hear  more  piano, 
violin,  and  vocal  recitals  and  orchestral  concerts  in  London, 
Berlin,  or  New  York  in  a  month  than  in  any  Italian  city  in 
two  years.  Even  church  music  is  neglected.  Rome  has 
365  churches,  but  "only  half  a  dozen  good  organs  and  not 
one  well-trained  church  choir,"  according  to  F.  Spero.* 

American  gold  has,  moreover,  lured  away  from  Italy 
nearly  all  the  good  singers.  A  student  can  hear  more 
first-class  opera  singing  in  New  York  in  one  week  than  in 
all  the  opera-houses  of  Italy  during  the  whole  season. 
This  is  admitted  by  the  Italians  themselves;  they  are  the 
ones  who  lament  it  most  loudly.  Leoncavallo  has  gone 
so  far  as  to  declare  that  there  is  no  use  in  writing  any  more 
operas  until  some  of  the  good  singers  are  brought  back 
from  America.  Nor  is  it  Italy  alone  that  has  been  de- 
spoiled.    France,  Germany,  Austria  join  in  the  lamento. 

*  Zeitschrift  der  Internaiionalen  Musik-Gesellschaft.  Breitkopf  & 
Hartel. 


SHOULD  AMERICANS  STUDY  ABROAD?  439 

Everywhere  the  complaint  is  that  all  the  great  singers  have 
gone  to  New  York. 

It  is  from  these  singers  that  pupils  of  song  can  learn 
most.  The  old  Italian  master,  Tosi,  declared  that  students 
should  lose  no  opportunity  to  hear  great  singers,  "because 
from  the  attention  in  hearing  them  one  reaps  more  ad- 
vantage than  from  any  instruction  whatsoever ^ 

David  C.  Taylor  has  written  a  most  important  and  sug- 
gestive book  *  in  which  he  develops  the  doctrine  that 
imitation  is  the  rational  foundation  for  a  method  of  voice 
culture.  Students  should  hear  the  best  singers  as  often 
as  possible,  note  carefully  the  quality  of  their  tones  and 
imitate  these  qualities  with  their  own  voices.f  Mr.  Taylor 
is  convinced  that  this  was  the  "old  Italian  method,"  of 
which  we  hear  so  much,  and  that  it  is  the  only  one  which 
leads  to  success. 

New  York  has  no  first-class  conservatory,  but  it  offers 
better  opportunities  than  any  city  in  the  world — even  than 
London — to  hear  and  imitate  the  world's  great  singers  of 
all  schools  and  countries.  Why  then  go  to  Europe? 
Because  opera  is  so  expensive  here  ?  It  is  not  much  cheaper 
in  Europe;  and  besides,  for  the  cost  of  a  return  trip  to 
Europe  you  can  buy,  at  $3  a  seat,  seventy  opportunities 
to  hear  the  best  singing  in  the  world  at  the  Metropolitan 
and  Manhattan  Opera  Houses. 

As  for  instrumental  music,  there  are  only  two  cities  in 
the  world — Berlin  and  London — which  have  more  first- 
class  concerts  than  New  York  offers.  And  not  only  New 
York.  All  of  the  world's  great  pianists  and  violinists 
cross  the  Atlantic  and  visit  all  American  cities  and  most  of 
the  smaller  towns.  There  is  doubtless  more  "musical 
atmosphere"  in  German  houses  than  in  ours,  but  as  far  as 

*  The  Psychology  of  Singing.     The  Macmillan  Co. 
f  Compare  with  this  the  remarks  in  the  chapter  on  Rubinstein,  p. 
306. 


440  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

public  performances  are  concerned,  we  have  enough  to 
breathe  and  be  exhilarated  by  the  artistic  ozone. 

But  how  about  the  prestige  ?  Is  it  not  necessary  to  make 
a  d^but  abroad  if  one  would  be  acclaimed  in  America? 
Not  in  the  least.  Of  course  it  helps  young  artists  at  home 
if  they  have  already  won  praise  abroad,  but  unless  the 
d^but  was  in  a  large  city,  and  sensational,  Americans  are 
not  likely  to  hear  of  it.  Criticisms  in  Italian  journals  are 
discounted  because  they  are  usually  paid  for.  As  a  matter 
of  fact.  New  York  has  become  the  grave  of  many  a  foreign 
reputation;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  superlative  merits 
of  some  singers — among  them  Lilli  Lehmann  and  Max 
Alvary — were  not  discovered  till  they  came  to  the  American 
metropolis.  American  artists  are  coming  more  and  more 
to  the  front,  both  at  home  and  abroad.  Most  of  the 
German  opera-houses  have  from  one  to  half  a  dozen  or 
more  Americans  among  their  singers;  and  at  the  Metro- 
politan Opera  House,  for  the  season  1909-10,  Mr.  Dippel 
announced  that  about  one-third  of  the  vocalists  would  be 
Americans. 

Starting  a  Career 

In  one  respect  Europe  presents  a  great  advantage  over 
America,  at  any  rate  for  young  opera  singers;  there  is  a 
much  greater  demand  for  them.  Italy  has  eleven  opera- 
houses  of  the  first  rank,  thirty  of  the  second;  and  Germany 
has  nearly  twice  as  many.  Thus  there  are  more  than  a 
hundred  companies,  in  these  two  countries  alone,  eager 
for  recruits  with  good  voices  and  other  qualities  likely  to 
attract  the  public,  whereas  our  country  has  barely  half  a 
dozen. 

It  is  because  of  this  great  demand  for  young  voices  that 
one  finds  so  many  Americans  at  the  German  opera-houses. 
There  they  get  the  necessary  experience,  becoming  familiar 
with  opera  after  opera,  and  learning  how  to  act  as  well  as 


STARTING  A  CAREER  441 

sing.  The  compensation,  it  is  true,  is  very  small  (about 
$1,000  the  first  year),  and  the  work  so  hard  that  immature 
voices  are  in  danger  of  being  ruined. 

Strange  to  say,  Germany  offers  excellent  opportunities 
not  only  for  dramatic  singers  but  for  light  American  voices 
suitable  for  colorature  work.  The  Germans  like  variety; 
while  Wagner  is  their  favorite,  they  also  want  to  listen  to 
ornamental  music  once  in  a  while,  wherefore  every  opera- 
house  tries  to  secure  a  capable  florid  songstress.  If  one 
of  these — or  of  their  more  dramatic  colleagues — wins  a 
notable  success,  the  American  managers  are  sure  to  hear 
of  it  and  make  advantageous  offers. 

An  operatic  debut  in  Italy  is  likely  to  be  an  occasion  very 
trying  to  the  nerves.  The  engagements  are  made  through 
agents,  of  whom  there  are  over  seventy  in  Milan,  the  head- 
quarters of  Italian  opera  for  both  Italy  and  Spain,  and  also 
for  South  America.  These  agents  are  not  specialists  in 
philanthropy.  The  debutante  has  to  pay  for  the  privilege 
of  appearing;  she  has  to  pay  for  the  advertising,  the  news- 
paper criticisms,  the  clacque,  the  good-will  of  her  asso- 
ciates in  the  company.  As  regards  her  respectability,  the 
American  girl  under  these  circumstances,  unless  she  has 
plenty  of  money,  needs,  in  the  words  of  Emil  Bridges,  "the 
purity  of  a  Una  and  the  strength  of  a  Brtinnhilde  to  come 
off  victor."  The  operatic  shores  are  strewn  with  wrecks 
of  character  as  well  as  careers. 

Few  debutantes  who  have  failed  to  become  prima 
donnas  in  grand  opera  have  sense  enough  to  turn  to 
operetta.  They  should  ponder  the  words  of  Lulu  Glaser: 
"I  had  much  rather  be  a  success  in  musical  comedy  or 
comic  opera  than  be  one  of  the  minor  people  in  grand 
opera,  with  a  chance  to  do  only  small  rdles  at  considerable 
intervals." 

In  light  opera,  a  debut  is  a  much  less  formidable  affair, 
and  the  chances  of  success  are  much  greater.     Henry  W. 


442  SUCCESS  IN  MUSIC 

Savage,  who  has  given  so  many  excellent  performances  of 
both  operettas  and  grand  operas  in  English,  offers  this  im- 
portant advice:  "If  I  were  to  suggest  one  detail  in  the 
education  of  American  singers  which  would  result  in  direct 
success,  I  would  say  that  the  need  of  dramatic  action  and 
stage  training  is  the  greatest.  Given  dramatic  action,  the 
singers  right  here  would  be  of  infinitely  greater  value  to 
me.     We  need  more  singers  who  can  act." 

If  the  operatic  novice  has  troubles  of  her  own,  they  are 
trifling  compared  with  those  the  concert  singer  or  player 
has  to  contend  with.  Some  of  these  were  referred  to  in  the 
introductory  section  on  music  and  money.  Isidore  Luck- 
stone,  who,  as  accompanist  at  many  recitals,  knows  things 
from  the  inside,  declares  that  he  thinks  that  "perhaps  nine 
out  of  ten  singers  would  agree  that  the  hardship  of  study 
is  not  to  be  compared  to  the  hardship  of  launching  into  the 
vortex  which  is  supposed  to  lead  to  fame  and  success." 

There  are  exceptions.  Some  singers — among  them 
Emma  Eames,  Geraldine  Farrar,  Mary  Garden,  Riccardo 
Martin — were  fortunate  enough  to  have  wealthy  patrons 
who  gave  or  advanced  them  sums  up  to  $20,000  to  help 
get  an  education  and  make  a  debut.  Others  have  been 
favored  by  diverse  circumstances — exceptional  gifts,  per- 
sonal magnetism,  coming  to  the  right  place  at  the  right 
time,  and  so  on.  But  to  the  artist  who  chooses  a  career 
on  the  concert  stage,  good  opportunities  rarely  present 
themselves  at  first.  Regarding  Berlin,  August  Spanuth 
writes  that  "even  in  the  rarest,  most  fortunate  cases  it  is 
necessary  to  wait  several  years  before  concert-giving  yields 
even  a  modest  profit."  The  same  is  true  in  America,  in 
England,  everywhere. 

On  returning  from  Europe,  the  American  who  wishes  to 
make  a  ddbut  usually  decides  to  give  a  song  recital — an 
unwise  thing  to  do,  for  such  a  recital  is  the  severest  test  to 
which  a  singer  can  be  put — much  severer  than  an  operatic 


STARTING  A  CAREER  443 

debut,  for  in  the  concert  hall  there  are  no  other  singers,  no 
orchestra,  no  chorus,  no  stage  accessories,  no  millionaires 
in  boxes,  to  distract  the  attention  of  the  audience.  Every- 
thing is  focussed  on  the  soloist's  performance,  every  flaw 
stands  out  conspicuously.  Famous  opera  singers  have 
come  to  grief  giving  song  recitals;  what  chance  has  a 
debutante  ? 

Managers  naturally  advise  those  recitals,  as  they  get  a 
share  of  the  $400  or  more  it  costs  to  give  one.  They  say, 
quite  truly,  that  they  cannot  do  anything  for  a  novice  until 
they  have  some  newspaper  criticisms  to  "circularize"  as  a 
bait  to  secure  an  engagement  in  or  out  of  town.  These 
criticisms  often  may  not  be  written,  after  a  recital,  or,  if 
written,  may  not  be  profitable  to  reprint.  Some  managers 
agree,  for  the  sum  of  two  or  three  thousand  dollars,  to 
secure  sufficient  engagements  to  launch  the  beginner  suc- 
cessfully; and  if  the  girl  happens  to  be  good-looking  but 
penniless,  they  have  the  effrontery  to  suggest  dishonorable 
ways  of  securing  the  sum  required. 

A  manager  it  is  necessary  to  have.  Some  agents  are 
honest,  some  are  not;  inquiry  among  musicians  is  advis- 
able. A  good  concert  agent  knows  the  condition  of  the 
musical  market  in  all  the  cities  and  towns  of  the  country; 
he  gets  demands  for  artists  and  sends  circulars  to  inquirers 
and  others.  Of  course,  he  is,  at  best,  in  this  business 
primarily  not  to  help  singers  or  pianists,  but  to  make 
money.  He  is  interested  in  the  artists  entrusted  to  his  care 
in  proportion  to  the  demand  for  them,  and  the  untried 
beginner  is  likely  to  remain  long  on  the  waiting  list.  Some 
managers  ask  a  booking  fee  in  advance;  others  do  not. 
The  late  Henry  Wolfsohn,  after  more  than  a  quarter  of  a 
century's  experience  as  agent  for  concert-givers,  said: 
"My  experience  has  taught  me  that  only  about  five  per 
cent,  of  those  who  struggle  and  aspire  can  have  their 
ambitions  gratified." 


444  SUCCESS   IN   MUSIC 

Mrs.  Kendall  once  wrote  that  an  aspirant  for  stage 
honors  should  have  "the  face  of  a  goddess,  the  form  of  a 
Venus,  the  strength  of  a  lion,  the  voice  of  a  dove,  the  dis- 
position of  an  angel,  the  grace  of  a  swan,  the  suppleness  of 
an  antelope,  and,  above  all  things,  the  skin  of  a  rhinoce- 
ros." A  would-be  concert-giver  should  have,  in  addition, 
an  inexhaustible  fund  of  patience  and  perseverance.  While 
waiting  for  the  agent  to  provide  something,  it  is  advisable 
to  try  all  other  possible  ways  of  obtaining  a  more  or  less 
public  hearing.  Amateur  entertainments  and  charity 
concerts  may  prove  helpful,  and  a  church  position  is  often 
a  stepping-stone  to  engagements  for  oratorios  and  spring 
festivals  as  well  as  operas. 

Church  singers  are  not  so  well  paid  as  formerly,  but 
Corinne  Rider-Kelsey  gets  $5,000  a  year  in  New  York. 
For  church  soloist  and  choir  engagements  there  are  special 
agencies  in  large  cities  from  which  information  regarding 
vacancies  may  be  obtained.  The  registration  fee  is  $10, 
and  the  bureau  also  exacts  five  per  cent,  of  the  first 
year's  salary.  Personal  interviews  with  organists  and 
committeemen  having  engagements  to  offer  are  considered 
advisable.  "Never  write,"  one  agent  is  quoted  as  saying. 
"Lay  for  your  organist  or  committeeman.  Lasso  them, 
if  necessary,  but  make  them  talk  to  you." 

When  a  chance  to  appear  at  a  concert  is  at  last  secured, 
it  is  of  great  importance  to  remember  that  the  impression 
made  on  the  audience  will  depend  not  only  on  the  music 
chosen  and  the  way  it  is  rendered,  but  largely  also  on  the 
personal  appearance  and  demeanor  of  the  performer. 
Not  all  artists  can  be  good-looking,  but  all  can  learn  how 
to  dress  becomingly,  how  to  walk  and  bow,  how  to  act  in 
general.  To  learn  the  art  of  proper  deportment  is  almost 
as  important  for  a  concert-giver  as  for  an  opera  singer. 
So  many  things  have  to  be  considered  by  those  who  would 
win  success! 


PROGRAMS  AND  ENCORES  445 

Programs,  Encores,  Stage  Fright 

A  Viennese  journalist  relates  that  one  day  he  accom- 
panied Brahms  to  a  concert  by  an  unknown  singer,  whose 
program  contained  a  number  of  little-known  songs  by 
Brahms.  ^'An  unpractical  fellow!"  exclaimed  the  com- 
poser. "Unknown  singers  should  begin  with  known 
songs." 

Another  thing  worth  remembering  is  that  unknown 
singers  and  players,  unless  they  are  officiating  at  a  school, 
should  not  attempt  to  make  their  program  ''educa- 
tional." The  public  goes  to  a  concert  to  be  entertained, 
not  educated.  It  pays  teachers  for  instruction,  artists  for 
amusement. 

An  artist  of  assured  position  may,  and  should,  try  to  do 
missionary  work  for  neglected  masterworks  and  new 
composers,  but  not  too  much  at  a  time. 

Pay  no  attention  to  those  critics  who  measure  the  value 
of  a  composition  by  the  time  it  takes  to  play  it.  Choose 
the  shorter  pieces,  in  which  the  composer  says  much  in  a 
short  time.  That's  modern — everywhere  except  among 
contemporary  musicians  in  Germany,  to  whom  the  per- 
formers give  more  attention  than  the  attitude  of  the  public 
warrants. 

Some  day  singers  will  discover  that  songs  which  display 
their  own  private  and  particular  best  notes  are  not  what 
concert-goers  are  primarily  interested  in  (see  p.  244); 
then  they  will  begin  to  choose  songs  for  their  intrinsic 
excellence,  and  their  recitals  will  be  better  attended.  The 
intrinsic  excellence  of  a  song  lies  chiefly  in  its  melody. 
Melody  is  what  the  public  wants,  and  the  most  melodious 
song  writers,  next  to  Schubert,  are  Franz,  Rubinstein, 
Liszt,  Grieg,  Jensen,  MacDowell;  yet  these  are  the  ones 
mostly  neglected.     I  have  attempted  elsewhere  *  to  point 

*  In  Songs  and  Song  Writers  and  Grieg  and  His  Music. 


446  SUCCESS    IN   MUSIC 

out  what  are  the  best,  that  is,  the  most  melodious,  songs  in 
existence,  for  the  guidance  of  singers.  If  they  want  en- 
cores, those  are  the  songs  they  should  sing.  But  they  must 
sing  them  with  expression  or  they  will  fall  fiat.  A  poor 
cook  can  spoil  terrapin  and  canvasback  duck.  Indeed,  the 
more  delicate  the  flavor,  the  more  easily  it  is  lost. 

It  is  well  to  study  the  programs'  of  famous  singers  and 
players,  to  learn  about  arrangement,  variety,  and  contrast. 
The  pieces  more  difficult  to  comprehend  (among  them 
sonatas)  should  come  early.  Toward  the  end  there  should 
be  sweets,  cheese,  and  liqueurs,  as  at  a  fine  dinner.  "  First 
the  intellectual,  then  the  emotional,  then  the  sensational" 
is  a  good  motto  to  follow. 

Above  all  things,  make  your  concerts  short,  or  they  will 
cease  to  be  entertainments.  It  is  infinitely  better  the 
hearers  should  leave  wishing  there  had  been  more  than 
with  the  words,  "  Thank  Heaven  it's  over."  For  orchestral 
concerts  two  hours  should  be  the  maximum,  for  a  recital, 
an  hour  and  a  half.  Paderewski,  to  be  sure,  sometimes 
plays  two  hours  and  a  half — but  that's  another  story. 

Paderewski's  one  fault  is  that  he  does  not  sufficiently 
vary  his  programs.  He  shares  this  fault  with  most  concert- 
givers.  The  current  repertory  includes  about  a  hundred 
songs  and  a  hundred  piano  pieces.  Yet  there  are  many 
hundreds  more  that  are  equally  good  and  that  would 
be  no  less  relished  were  they  sung  and  played.  The 
public  loves  to  be  surprised.  There  are  plenty  of  chances 
to  surprise  it  with  buried  diamonds  and  gold  nuggets  such 
as  South  Africa  does  not  yield. 

Liszt  held  that  the  pianist  should  be  neither  the  master 
nor  the  servant  of  the  public.  By  stooping  a  little  he  may 
gradually  conquer  it  for  the  higher  things  in  art.  Do 
not  be  afraid  to  play  Liszt's  fantasias — the  public  loves 
them  and  they  are  masterworks — or  dance  pieces.  All 
the  great  masters  wrote  dance  music,  and  con  amore. 


PROGRAMS  AND   ENCORES  447 

Appeal  to  the  feelings  of  your  hearers,  and  the  battle  is 
won.     They  will  come  again — vide  Wiillner. 

Artists  naturally  like  those  demands  for  repetitions  or 
extras  known  as  "encores."  As  a  rule,  they  are  tokens  of 
success,  but  sometimes,  when  only  a  few  of  the  hearers 
demand  them,  and  persistently,  the  opposite  impression  is 
produced.  Many  a  musician  has  cause  to  exclaim: 
''Save  me  from  my  friends."  Never  grant  an  encore  un- 
less the  majority  unmistakably  want  it.  It  is  better  in 
most  cases  to  give  another  song — or  piece — and  it  should 
be  short — than  to  repeat  the  same  one.  Encore  fiends 
should  remember  Shakespeare's 

"Enough!     No  more. 
'Tis  not  so  sweet  now  as  it  was  before." 

Alas!  the  best  laid  plans  o'  mice  and  men.  .  .  .  After 
overcoming  seemingly  insuperable  obstacles,  the  young 
artist  may  at  last  have  reached  his  goal  of  standing  on  the 
stage  and  appealing  to  an  audience  of  music  lovers,  pro- 
fessionals, and  critics,  when  lo !  an  arch  fiend  appears  and 
mars  everything  at  the  last  moment. 

Stage  fright  is  the  artist's  deadliest  enemy.  It  makes 
the  singer's  voice  tremble  and  get  off  the  pitch,  the  violin- 
ist's arm  quiver,  the  pianist's  fingers  lose  their  cunning. 
The  memory  becomes  confused,  technical  execution  in- 
correct, and  expression  is  of  course  out  of  the  question. 

Are  there  any  remedies  ?  Drugs  are  worse  than  useless; 
stimulants  (tea,  coffee,  tobacco,  liquors)  help  in  some  cases, 
harm  in  others.  Heinrich  Pudor  knew  a  violinist  who 
suffered  from  a  fearful,  almost  convulsive,  trembling  of  his 
right  arm,  and  who  cured  himself  completely  by  cold 
sponge-offs  of  this  arm.  Plenty  of  exercise  in  the  open  air 
is  to  be  recommended,  and  singers  are  greatly  aided  by 
correct  and  deep  breathing  (consciously,  when  the  fright 
comes  on). 


448  SUCCESS    IN    MUSIC 

Most  of  the  great  artists  suffer,  as  we  saw  in  the  preceding 
biographic  sketches,  from  stage  fright;  it  is  one  of  the 
penalties  of  being  a  great  artist.  But  what  I  wish  to  call 
attention  to  particularly  is  that  in  these  cases  the  fright 
usually  precedes  the  performance  and  soon  disappears. 
Lehmann  "suffers  tortures  of  anticipation";  Nordica 
"feels  tempted  to  run  away  when  the  fateful  hour  ap- 
pears," and  Sembrich  speaks  of  "the  dreadful  times"  she 
has  "before  almost  every  performance."  But  as  soon  as 
the  work  has  begun  in  earnest  the  nervousness  vanishes. 
Why  ?  Because  great  singers  have  a  habit — a  habit  which 
is  the  main  secret  of  their  success — of  concentrating  their 
mind  entirely  on  the  music,  forgetting  themselves  as  well  as 
the  audience.  Just  as  a  trained  mountain  climber,  to  avert 
dizziness,  thinks  not  of  the  deadly  precipice,  so  the  singer 
or  player  must  learn  to  control  his  attention.  It  is  another 
instance  of  exercising  the  will-power. 

In  the  case  of  pianists,  one  of  the  main  sources  of  stage 
fright  is  the  habit  of  playing  everything  "by  heart." 
Things  have  come  to  such  a  pass  that  a  pianist  is  hardly 
considered  up  to  "concert  pitch"  unless  he  plays  everything 
from  memory.  Now,  there  is  undoubtedly  an  advantage 
in  thus  playing — an  advantage  similar  to  that  which  an 
orator  has  over  one  who  reads  his  speech;  but  there  are' 
also  good  reasons  why  the  doings  of  giants  should  not  be 
imitated  by  those  of  lesser  stature  unless  they  are  favored 
with  a  particularly  retentive  memory.  The  fear  of  for- 
getting— of  making  a  mistake — of  "losing  the  place" 
altogether — is  responsible  for  the  failure  of  many  promising 
debutants.  It  makes  them  so  nervous  that  even  if  they 
make  no  technical  mistakes  they  are  unable  to  play  with 
the  proper  abandon  and  emotional  expression.  The  hard 
work  of  memorizin;^  tempts  them  also  to  limit  their  reper- 
tory; prominent  pianists  thus  satiate  their  audiences, 
for  not  all  of  them  are  like  D'Albert,  who  once  played 


A  FEW  HEALTH  HINTS 


449 


from  memory  eleven  dififerent  concertos  within  three 
weeks. 

Most  pianists  would  undoubtedly  improve  their  chances 
of  success  if  they  placed  the  music  before  them.  Probably 
they  would  never  look  at  it — for  of  course  they  should 
memorize  everything  they  play  in  public — but  the  knowl- 
edge that  in  case  of  accident  the  music  was  before  their 
eyes  would  give  them  confidence  and  allay  stage  fright. 
If  Rubinstein  had  followed  this  plan,  he  would  not  have 
been  so  much  tormented  in  the  last  years  of  his  career  by 
distrust  of  his  memory. 

Opera  singers  have  a  prompter  and  a  conductor  to  come 
to  their  aid  in  a  moment  of  uncertainty,  and  Jean  de 
Reszke,  Nordica,  and  others  have  told  me  what  a  comfort 
it  is  to  know  that.  Why  should  pianists  be  left  helpless? 
Pugno  always  has  the  printed  music  before  him.  Anna 
Mehlig  did  the  same  thing,  and  Clara  Schumann  played 
her  husband's  concerto  with  the  score  before  her,  though 
she  knew,  of  course,  every  note  by  heart.  Before  Liszt,  all 
pianists  used  their  notes,  and  he  dispensed  with  them 
partly  because  his  pieces  were  largely  improvisations, 
varying  from  concert  to  concert. 

A  phenomenal  memory  is  not  a  thing  to  be  particularly 
proud  of.  Blind  Tom,  the  negro,  could  repeat  any  piece 
after  hearing  it  once.  He  could,  in  the  same  way,  repeat 
an  orator's  speech,  with  every  inflection;  yet  he  did  not 
know  what  the  words  he  repeated  meant,  for  he  was  an 
idiot.* 

A  Few  Health  Hints 

It  has  been  said  that  there  are  only  three  avenues  to 
fame:  Genius,  energy,  and  health.     Of  these  three,  health 

*  While  the  memory  is  the  lowest  of  the  mental  faculties,  its  cultivation 
is  nevertheless  of  great  importance  to  musicians.  The  best  remarks  I 
know  of  on  how  to  memorize  a  piece  are  in  Lavignac's  Musical  Education, 
published  by  D.  Appleton  &  Co.     Pp.  93-100. 


450  SUCCESS    IN    MUSIC 

is  by  no  means  the  least  important;  a  musician  who  has  to 
appear  in  public  frequently  needs  it  particularly;  without 
it,  no  great  and  lasting  success  is  possible.  Yet  there  are 
few  artists  who  do  not  daily  violate  the  laws  of  health,  to  the 
detriment  of  their  bodies,  their  voices,  their  playing,  their 
reputation.  Some  commit  these  sins  against  themselves, 
and  through  themselves  against  their  art,  because  the  flesh 
is  weak,  the  appetite  strong.  Others  commit  them  because 
of  lack  of  hygienic  knowledge;  for  these,  a  few  hints  are 
here  offered. 

In  nine  cases  out  of  ten  the  question  whether  or  not  a 
singer  is  "in  good  voice"  is  a  question  of  health.  The 
great  artists  know  that,  and  avoid  what  they  have  found 
to  be  detrimental.  Indigestion  is  the  most  frequent  cause 
of  singers  not  being  in  good  voice.  A  well-known  bass 
once  said  to  me:  ''Good  singing  is  seven-eighths  a  ques- 
tion of  digestion."  That  is  an  exaggeration,  but  it  has  its 
use  as  a  warning. 

In  travelling,  particularly,  an  artist  has  to  put  up  with 
much  badly  cooked  food;  but  it  is  well  to  remember  the 
adage  that  **  nothing  is  more  injurious  to  health  than  a  bad 
cook,  except  a — good  cook!"  The  good  cook  tempts  us 
to  eat  too  much.  We  all  eat  too  much.  Fletcher,  Irving 
Fisher,  and  others  have  shown  by  experiments  that  balf  the 
amount  of  food  we  eat,  if  properly  chewed,  gives  us  twice 
the  energy  we  now  derive  from  our  groaning  tables.  Here 
is  another  chance  to  exercise  your  will-power.  But  don't 
make  a  resolution  and  keep  it  only  a  week,  or  a  month! 
Without  perseverance  nothing  can  be  accomplished. 

Strong  drink  has  dug  an  early  grave  for  many  an  artist 
by  undermining  the  health  and  paralyzing  the  will.  Beer 
and  wine,  in  moderation,  and  if  of  good  quality,  are  harm- 
less to  many;  but  how  often  can  you  get  them  good  ?  Old 
wine  helps  digestion,  young  wine — and  adulterated  wine- 
retards  it. 


A  FEW  HEALTH  HINTS  451 

Ice-water  has  ruined  more  stomachs  and  voices  than 
whiskey.  The  American  custom  of  serving  a  goblet  of  ice- 
water  at  the  beginning  of  each  meal  is  criminal — no  other 
word  is  strong  enough.  Ice-water  does  not  even  allay 
thirst;  the  more  you  drink  the  more  you  crave.  ''Drink 
nothing  below  sixty  degrees  in  temperature  and  drink 
sparingly,"  is  the  advice  of  Dr.  Wiley,  who  has  done  so 
much  to  safeguard  the  health  of  Americans.  Never  gulp 
a  glass  of  water.  Imbibe  the  liquid  in  small  quantities, 
and  you  will  find  that  half  a  glass  goes  farther  than  three 
gulped  glasses,  and  does  you  more  good.  On  hot  days, 
when  the  system  needs  large  quantities  of  liquid,  weak  hot 
tea  is  far  preferable  to  cold  water.  On  tour,  never  drink 
unboiled  or  unbottled  water  unless  you  know  it  is  likely 
to  be  free  from  typhoid  and  other  deadly  germs.  The 
unconcerned  way  in  which  people  drink  water  on  railway 
cars  is  amazing. 

Musicians  should  protest  on  every  possible  occasion 
against  the  voice-murdering,  spirit-depressing  air  in  which 
they  have  to  sing  and  play  in  theatres  and  concert  halls. 
Often  this  air  is  hot,  stuffy,  stale,  foul — so  foul  that  if  it 
could  be  made  visible  to  the  eyes  it  would  look,  compared 
to  fresh  air,  as  a  mud-puddle  looks  compared  to  a  mountain 
stream.  If  a  picture  of  this  air  could  be  thrown  on  a  screen, 
the  audience  would  stampede  for  the  doors  as  if  some  one 
had  raised  the  cry  of  fire.  This  destestable  air  injures  the 
chances  of  an  artist's  success  in  another  way:  it  makes 
audiences  become  tired,  listless,  bored,  indifferent,  unap- 
plausive  and  inclined  to  leave  the  hall,  simply  because  there 
is  no  oxygen,  no  ozone  to  breathe.  Insist  on  the  proper 
ventilation  of  the  halls  you  are  to  appear  in.  If  there  is  a 
chance,  help  to  lynch  the  architect. 

The  unspeakable  value  of  being  out  in  the  open  air  as 
much  as  possible,  and  of  breathing  in  the  oxygen  as  deeply 
as  one  can,  need  not  be  dwelt  on  again.     If  you  breathe 


452  SUCCESS    IN   MUSIC 

(always  through  your  nose)  deeply  and  slowly,  the  amount 
of  oxygen  supplied  to  the  blood  is  largely  increased,  which 
is  better  far  than  iron  pills  and  all  other  tonics.  Deep 
breathing  will  even  cure  colds  in  their  first  stages — and  a 
cold  often  costs  a  singer  thousands  of  dollars!  If  you  have 
a  cold,  do  not  cough — that  simply  irritates  the  throat- 
r-  Breathe  deeply,  and  the  irritation  will  soon  cease.  A  good 
remedy  is  snuffing  up  a  pinch  of  boracic  acid.  Steaming 
the  throat  and  nose  (very  carefully)  with  witch-hazel 
often  cleans  them  out  wonderfully  and  brings  on  refresh- 
ing sleep. 

''Tired  nature's  sweet  restorer"  is,  after  all,  the  greatest 
of  all  tonics.  Insomnia  is  quite  as  bad  as  indigestion; 
quite  as  fatal,  in  the  long  run,  to  voices  and  constitutions. 
Its  most  frequent  causes  are  indigestion,  tired  eyes  and 
nervous  excitement.  Apart  from  insufficient  chewing,  indi- 
gestion, and  the  ensuing  sleeplessness,  are  caused  most 
frequently  by  eating  sweet  dishes  and  fruits  at  the  evening 
dinner.  Tired  eyes  should  be  bathed  in  warm  water  in 
v/hich  a  pinch  of  borax  has  been  dissolved.  Placing  over 
them  a  layer  of  absorbent  cotton  soaked  in  good  extract  of 
witch-hazel  often  helps  to  bring  on  deep  and  dreamless 
sleep — the  only  kind  which  refreshes  the  brain.  An  hour's 
sleep  in  the  afternoon  is  often  most  invigorating  for  the 
evening's  work.  Get  your  ''beauty  sleep" — before  mid- 
night— whenever  possible.  Morning  sleep  is  too  often 
marred  by  noises  and  by  the  light  from  the  windows 
shining  on  your  eyes.  Have  your  bed  so  made  up  that 
you  do  not  face  the  window.  If  this  cannot  be  done,  put 
on  goggles  when  you  are  waked  up  by  the  light  early  in  the 
morning.  Never  shut  out  the  light  with  heavy  curtains 
that  prevent  ventilation.  Pure  night  air  is  the  elixir  of 
life,  because  it  makes  your  sleep  doubly  invigorating. 
Nervous  excitement  inimical  to  sleep  can  be  allayed  by 
deep  breathing  and  plenty  of  exercise  in  the  open  air. 


A   FEW   HEALTH   HINTS  453 

Sleep  can  be  made  a  habit  by  stubbornly  banishing  all 
thoughts  after  you  have  put  your  head  on  the  pillow,  and  in 
case  you  wake  up  during  the  night.  Above  all  things, 
never  brood — in  bed  or  out — over  unpleasant  occurrences 
or  criticisms.  What's  the  use  ?  Be  philosophical.  None 
of  the  great  artists  escaped  censure,  yet  that  did  not  prevent 
them  from  winning  success.  And  if  your  success  is  too 
much  delayed,  don't  get  discouraged.  Remember  the  lines 
of  Cowper: 

"  Beware  of  desperate  steps  !     The  darkest  day, 
Live  till  to-morrow,  will  have  passed  away." 


XXVIII 
PADEREWSKI  ON  TEMPO  RUBATO 

On  the  very  important  and  much-disputed  question  of 
Tempo  Rubato,  Mr.  Paderewski  has  kindly  written  the 
following  in  English  for  this  volume: 

Rhythm  is  the  pulse  of  music.  Rhythm  marks  the  beat- 
ing of  its  heart,  proves  its  vitality,  attests  its  very  existence. 

Rhythm  is  order.  But  this  order  in  music  cannot  pro- 
gress with  the  cosmic  regularity  of  a  planet,  nor  with  the 
automatic  uniformity  of  a  clock.  It  reflects  life,  organic 
human  life,  with  all  its  attributes,  therefore  it  is  subject  to 
moods  and  emotions,  to  rapture  and  depression. 

There  is  in  music  no  absolute  rate  of  movement.  The 
tempo,  as  we  usually  call  it,  depends  on  physiological  and 
physical  conditions.  It  is  influenced  by  interior  or  ex- 
terior temperature,  by  surroundings,  instruments,  acoustics. 

There  is  no  absolute  rhythm.  In  the  course  of  the  dra- 
matic development  of  a  musical  composition,  the  initial 
themes  change  their  character,  consequently  rhythm 
changes  also,  and,  in  conformity  with  that  character,  it  has 
to  be  energetic  or  languishing,  crisp  or  elastic,  steady  or 
capricious.     Rhythm  is  life. 

According  to  a  current  story,  Chopin  used  to  say  to  his 
pupils:  "Play  freely  with  the  right  hand,  but  let  the  left 
one  act  as  your  conductor  and  keep  time."  We  do  not 
know  whether  the  story  should  be  afforded  the  benefit  of 
the  doubt.  Even  if  it  be  exact,  the  great  composer  con- 
tradicted it  most  energetically  in  such  wonderful  com- 
positions as  the  ^tude  in  C  sharp  minor,  preludes  No.  6 

454 


PADEREWSKI    ON    TEMPO    RUBATO    455 

and  No.  22,  the  polonaise  in  C  minor,  and  in  so  many  frag- 
ments of  others  of  his  masterpieces,  where  the  left  hand 
does  not  play  the  part  of  a  conductor,  but  most  distincdy 
that  of  a  prima  donna.  Another  contradiction  of  this 
theory,  or  rather  of  the  way  Chopin  put  it  into  practice, 
is  the  testimony  of  some  of  his  contemporaries.  Berlioz 
affirms  most  emphatically  that  Chopin  could  not  play  in 
time,  and  Sir  Charles  Halle  pretends  to  have  proved  to 
Chopin,  by  counting,  that  he  played  some  mazurkas 
I  instead  of  f  time.  In  replying  to  Charles  Hall^, 
Chopin  is  said  to  have  observed,  humorously,  that  this  was 
quite  in  the  national  character.  Both  Berlioz  and  Halle 
evidently  intended  to  testify  against  Chopin.  Berlioz, 
although  extremely  sensitive  to  the  picturesque  and  the 
characteristic,  was  not  emotional  at  all;  besides,  the  in- 
strument he  played  the  best,  the  instrument  on  which  he 
even  tried  to  perform  before  some  friends  his  Symphonie 
Fantastique,  the  sonorous  and  expressive  guitar,  could  not 
have  revealed  to  the  great  man  all  the  possibilities  of 
musical  interpretation.  As  for  Sir  Charles  Halle,  a  dis- 
tinguished but  rather  too  scholastic  pianist,  this  estimable 
gentleman,  who  knew  so  many  things,  ought  to  have 
known  better  here.  Our  human  metronome,  the  heart, 
under  the  influence  of  emotion,  ceases  to  beat  regularly — 
physiology  calls  it  arythmia.  Chopin  played  from  his 
heart.  His  playing  was  not  national;  it  was  emotional. 
To  be  emotional  in  musical  interpretation,  yet  obedient 
to  the  initial  tempo  and  true  to  the  metronome,  means  about 
as  much  as  being  sentimental  in  engineering.  Mechanical 
execution  and  emotion  are  incompatible.  To  play 
Chopin's  G  major  nocturne  with  rhythmic  rigidity  and 
pious  respect  for  the  indicated  rate  of  movement  would  be 
as  intolerably  monotonous,  as  absurdly  pedantic,  as  to 
recite  Gray's  famous  Elegy  to  the  beating  of  a  metronome. 
The  tempo  as  a  general  indication  of  character  in  a  com- 


456  SUCCESS   IN   MUSIC 

position  is  undoubtedly  of  great  importance;  the  metro- 
nome may  be  useful:  MelzePs  ingenious  device,  though 
far  from  being  perfect,  is  quite  particularly  helpful  to 
students  not  endowed  by  nature  with  a  keen  sense  of 
rhythm;  but  a  composer's  imagination  and  an  inter- 
preter's emotion  are  not  bound  to  be  the  humble  slaves 
of  either  metronome  or  tempo. 

Our  Olympian  predecessors,  the  classics,  although  liv- 
ing under  different  conditions,  and  on  a  plane  above  that 
of  our  present-day  nervousness  and  excitement,  seemed  to 
realize  the  impossibility  of  containing  some  of  their  ideas 
within  the  limits  of  the  indicated  time  and  rate  of  move- 
ment. In  Bach's  works  we  sometimes  see  Adagio  and  Al- 
legro, Animato  and  Lento  in  the  same  bar.  Haydn  and 
Mozart  frequently  use  expressions  such  as  quasi  cadenza^ 
ad  libit.,  leaving  thus  to  the  interpreter  entire  freedom  as  to 
the  rhythm  and  rate  of  movement.  The  most  human  of 
them,  the  most  passionate,  the  only  composer  who  knew  al- 
most exactly  how  to  express  what  he  wanted,  Beethoven, 
took  quite  particular  care  of  tempi  and  dynamic  indica- 
tions. When  we  look  at  the  first  movements  of  the  D  minor 
sonata,  of  the  op.  57,  of  the  op.  iii,  at  the  Largo  in  the  op. 
106,  and  especially  at  the  beginning  of  the  Adagio  in  the 
op.  no,  we  see  the  embarrassment  and  discomfort  to 
which  all  the  tempo-sticklers  and  metronome-believers  are 
exposed  when  attempting  to  play  or  to  teach  these  works. 
And  yet,  in  spite  of  his  stupendous,  almost  abnormal, 
sense  of  precision,  in  spite  of  his  vast  knowledge  of  Italian 
terminology — a  quality  in  which  nearly  all  modern,  non- 
Italian  composers  are  positively  deficient  * — Beethoven 
could  not  always  be  precise.  Why?  Because  there  are 
in  musical  expression  certain  things  which  are  vague  and 

*  We  see  in  Max  Reger's  remarkable  op.  86  such  gems  as:  sempre 
poco  a  poco  cresc.  (pages  9-10),  assai  delicaio  sempre  (page  16),  ben  es press, 
ed  espress.  ten  il  melodia  (page  18). 


PADEREWSKI    ON   TEMPO    RUBATO     457 

consequently  cannot  be  defined;  because  they  vary  accord- 
ing to  individuals,  voices,  or  instruments;  because  a  musical 
composition,  printed  or  written,  is,  after  all,  a  form,  a 
mould:  the  performer  infuses  life  into  it,  and,  whatever 
the  strength  of  that  life  may  be,  he  must  be  given  a  reason- 
able amount  of  liberty,  he  must  be  endowed  with  some 
discretional  power.  In  our  modern  meaning  discretional 
power  is  Tempo  Rubato, 

Tempo  Rubato,  this  irreconcilable  foe  of  the  metronome, 
is  one  of  music's  oldest  friends.  It  is  older  than  the  roman- 
tic school,  it  is  older  than  Mozart,  it  is  older  than  Bach. 
Girolamo  Frescobaldi,  in  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  made  ample  use  of  it.  Why  it  is  called  rubato  * 
we  do  not  really  know.  All  lexicons  give  the  literal  trans- 
lation of  it  as:  robbed,  stolen  time.  Now,  the  most  com- 
mon, the  most  frequent,  the  simplest  form  of  Tempo 
Rubato  is  obtained  by  a  ritenuto  or  a  ritardando  which,  as 
every  one  knows,  serve  to  increase  the  value  of  respective 
notes.  Where  there  is  increase  there  can  have  been  no 
robbery.  Addition  cannot  be  called  subtraction.  Al- 
though we  protest  against  the  use  of  the  words:  robbed, 
stolen  time,  we  recognize  that  the  very  essence  of  Tempo 
Rubato  is  a  certain  disregard  of  the  established  properties 
of  rhythm  and  rate  of  movement.  The  French  transla- 
tion of  Tempo  Rubato:  mouvement  derobe,  while  not  giving 
the  full,  modern  meaning  of  it,  is  the  best  of  all.  It  im- 
plies the  idea  of  fleeing  away  from  the  strict  value  of  the 
notes,  evading  metric  discipline.  We  should  be  inclined 
to  call  it  evasive  movement. 

It  would  be  wrong  to  pretend  that  Tempo  Rubato  is  the 

*  ** Rubato"  is  the  past  participle  of  the  Italian  verb  "rttbare,'^  which 
is  derived  from  the  Latin  "rapere" — to  steal.  This  word,  carried  to  Ger- 
many by  the  Romans,  was  there  transmuted  into  "rauben"  and  when 
the  Germanic  invasions  brought  it  back  to  Italian  soil  it  became  the 
"raubare"  of  decadent  Latin.  With  the  vowel  a  suppressed,  it  has 
since  passed  into  the  Italian  dictionary  as  "rubare'* — to  steal. 


4S8  SUCCESS    IN   MUSIC 

exclusive  privilege  of  the  higher  artistic  form  in  music. 
Popular  instinct  evolved  it  probably  long  before  the  first 
sonata  was  written.  Expressed  although  nameless,  it  has 
always  been  in  all  national  music.  It  is  Tempo  Rubato 
which  makes  the  Hungarian  dances  so  fantastic,  fascinat- 
ing, capricious;  which  so  often  makes  the  Viennese  waltz 
sound  like  f  instead  of  f  time;  which  gives  to  the  mazurka 
that  peculiar  accent  on  the  third  beat,  resulting  some- 
times in  f  +  1^:    . 


The  literature  concerning  Tempo  Rubato  is  not  par- 
ticularly rich.  Apart  from  short  notes  to  be  found  in 
lexicons,  we  can  only  quote  a  few  really  authoritative 
opinions,  always  admitting  that  there  may  be  some  others, 
and  very  valuable  ones,  unfortunately  unknown  to  us. 
Liszt,  in  his  beautiful  though  rather  bombastic  volume, 
Frederic  Chopin,  devotes  to  the  subject  a  few  interest- 
ing passages;  Ehlert  and  Hanslick,  as  far  as  we  can  re- 
member, seem  to  pay  little  attention  to  it;  on  the  contrary, 
Niecks,  Kleczynski,  and  especially  Huneker,  treat  it  more 
extensively.  Peculiarly  enough,  all  the  above-mentioned 
authors  speak  about  the  matter  incidentally  and  in  con- 
junction with  Chopin,  as  if  Tempo  Rubato  were  an  exclu- 
sive attribute  of  Chopin's  music;  all  of  them  say  excellent 
things  without  solving  the  question,  which  is  still  and  will 
be  open  to  further  investigation. 

We  do  not  pretend  to  have  anything  new  to  say  upon  the 
subject;  our  desire  is  to  remove  the  stigma  of  morbidness 
which  seems  to  be  attached  to  it.  Tempo  Rubato  is  not 
pathological,  it  is  physiological,  as  it  is  a  normal  function 
of  interpretative  art.  In  our  opinion  it  is  not  so  much 
Tempo  Rubato,  as  the  romance  of  Chopin's  life  and  his 


PADEREWSKI    ON   TEMPO    RUBATO    459 

premature  end,  which  are  responsible  for  the  silly  super- 
stition that  Chopin  should  be  played  in  a  soft,  sentimental, 
sickly  manner.  Tempo  Rubato  is  a  potent  factor  in 
musical  oratory,  and  every  interpreter  should  be  able  to 
use  it  skilfully  and  judiciously,  as  it  emphasizes  the  ex- 
pression, introduces  variety,  infuses  life  into  mechanical 
execution.  It  soften^  the  sharpness  of  lines,  blunts  the 
structural  angles  without  ruining  them,  because  its  action 
is  not  destructive:  it  intensifies,  subtilizes,  idealizes  the 
rhythm.  As  stated  above,  it  converts  energy  into  languor, 
crispness  into  elasticity,  steadiness  into  capriciousness.  It 
gives  music,  already  possessed  of  the  metric  and  rhythmic 
accents,  a  third  accent,  emotional,  individual,  that  which 
Mathis  Lussy,  in  his  excellent  book  on  musical  expression, 
calls  V  accent  pathkique. 

The  technical  side  of  Tempo  Rubato  consists,  as  is 
generally  admitted,  of  a  more  or  less  important  slackening 
or  quickening  of  the  time  or  rate  of  movement.  Some 
people,  evidently  led  by  laudable  principles  of  equity, 
while  insisting  upon  the  fact  of  stolen  time,  pretend  that 
what  is  stolen  ought  to  be  restored.  We  duly  acknowledge 
the  highly  moral  motives  of  this  theory,  but  we  humbly 
confess  that  our  ethics  do  not  reach  such  a  high  level.  The 
making  up  of  what  has  been  lost  is  natural  in  the  case  of 
playing  with  the  orchestra,  where,  for  the  security  of  the 
whole,  in  spite  of  fractional  alterations  of  movement,  the 
metric  integrity  should  be  rigorously  preserved.  With 
soloists  it  is  quite  different.  The  value  of  notes  dimin- 
ished in  one  period  through  an  accelerando ,  cannot  always 
be  restored  in  another  by  a  ritardando.  What  is  lost  is 
lost.  For  any  lawlessness  there  is,  after  a  certain  term — 
proscription. 

As  we  have  already  said.  Tempo  Rubato  appears  fre- 
quently in  popular  music,  especially  in  dances,  conse- 
quently it  ought  to  be  used  in  the  works  of  Chopin,  Schu- 


46o  SUCCESS   IN   MUSIC 

bert,  Schumann  {Papillons,  Carnival)  ^  Brahms,  Liszt, 
Grieg,  and  in  all  compositions  which  have  folk-music  as 
a  foundation.  Practically,  it  can  be  used  anywhere — save, 
perhaps,  in  some  ancestral  music,  where  there  is  room  for 
no  passion,  where  the  serene  purity  of  architecture,  a 
majestic  dignity  and  repose,  lead  to  spheres  of  almost 
immaterial  and  unearthly  beauty. 

It  would  be  unthinkable  to  play  Chopin*  without  using 
Tempo  Rubato;  but  neither  would  any  one  do  justice  to 
such  works  as  Schumann's  Fantasia,  Fantasiestucke,  Car- 
nival, Humor eske,  the  sonata  in  F  sharp  minor,  etc., 
without  wisely  applying  that  means  of  expression.  How- 
ever strong  and  peculiar  was  Mendelssohn's  dislike  of 
Tempo  Rubato,  we  cannot  recommend  too  unconditional 
a  respect  for  the  great  composer's  personal  feeling  in  this 
matter.  Some  of  his  Songs  Without  Words,  of  predomi- 
nantly lyric  character,  must  be  played  freely,  because 
whatever  is  lyric  defies  the  rigidity  of  metric  and  rhythmic 
lines.  Curiously  enough,  one  of  the  most  striking  examples 
of  Tempo  Rubato  is  to  be  found  in  Mendelssohn's  violin 
concerto,  in  the  short  Intermezzo  leading  from  the  Andante 
to  the  Finale.  We  well  remember  the  playing  of  this  by 
the  great  Joachim — in  our  opinion  the  greatest  exponent 
of  classical  music;  it  was  most  distinctly  rubato. 

I.  A.  F.  M.,  in  his  concise  but  excellent  description 
of  Tempo  Rubato,  published  in  Grove's  dictionary,  ex- 
presses doubt  whether  rubato  should  be  used  in  Beethoven. 
To  this  we  answer  without  hesitation  in  the  affirmative. 
Rubato  was  Rubinstein's  playing  of  the  opening  bars  and 
the  Andante  of  the  G  major  concerto;  rubato  was  Joa- 
chim's rendering  of  the  middle  part  in  the  Finale  of  the 
violin  concerto;  and  Biilow,  whom  we  by  no  means  pre- 

♦Most  striking  and  really  beautiful  things  bearing  upon  the  inter- 
pretation of  Chopin's  works  are  to  be  found  in  Mr.  J.  Huneker's  book, 
Chopin :  the  Man  and  His  Music. 


PADEREWSKI    ON   TEMPO    RUBATO     461 

tend  to  put  on  the  same  level  as  the  two  artists  just  men- 
tioned, but  who  was  a  great  authority  in  Germany,  in- 
dulged in  Tempo  Rubato  very  frequently,  when  playing 
Beethoven.  The  Largo  in  the  C  minor,  the  Andante  in 
the  G  major,  the  Adagio  in  the  E  flat  concertos  call  im- 
peratively for  Tempo  Rubato.  And  what  would  a  pianist 
with  a  grain  of  common  sense  do  in  passages  such  as 


opus  III,  without  Tempo  Rubato? 

In  fact,  every  composer,  when  using  such  words  as 
espressivo,  con  molto  sentimento,  con  passione,  teneramente^ 
etc.,  demands  from  the  exponent,  according  to  the  term 
indicated,  a  certain  amount  of  emotion,  and  emotion  ex- 
cludes regularity.  Tempo  Rubato  then  becomes  an  in- 
dispensable assistant,  but  with  it,  unfortunately,  appears 
also  the  danger  of  exaggeration.  Real  knowledge  of- 
different  styles,  a  cultured  musical  taste,  and  a  well- 
balanced  sense  of  vivid  rhythm  should  guard  the  inter- 
preter against  any  abuse.  Excess  of  freedom  is  often 
more  pernicious  than  the  severity  of  the  law. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Abell,  a.,  246,  344. 

Abroad,  studying,  8,  370,  434. 

Accentuation,  260,  273,  288,  370. 

Actor,  Rubini  as,  203;  Brignoli, 
203;  Mario,  204;  Caruso,  210; 
De  Reszke,  216,  222;  Maurel, 
230-4;  Renaud,  236-242. 

Actress,  Jenny  Lind  as,  29,  44,  45, 
46;  Nilsson,  59;  Patti,  67; 
Pasta,  74;  Viardot-Garcia,  86; 
Malibran,  89;  Schroder-Devrient 
100,  103;  Lehmann,  107,  no; 
Brandt,  118;  Schumann-Heink, 
124;  Lucca,  128;  Sembrich,  132, 
137;  Garden,  143-6;  Nordica, 
162,  165;  Eames,  172;  Farrar, 
180-188. 

Agents.     See  Managers. 

Age  to  begin,  356,  406-8. 

Albert,  C.  d',  292,  416,  448. 

Aldrich,  R.,  106. 

Alvarez,  8. 

Alvary,  M.,  213,  218. 

American  singers,  91,  92,  95,  145, 
156-190,  440. 

Applause,  36,  39,  40,  43,  70,  447. 

Apthorp,  W.  F.,  108,  200,  297,  420. 

Armstrong,  Wm.,  119,  167. 

Arnold,  W.  H.,  392. 

Atmosphere,  musical,  115,  434. 

Australia,  138. 

Austrian  singers,  93,  1 15-137. 

Bach,  254,  296,  298,  299. 
Baritones,  up-to-date,  224-249. 
Bar  lines,  300,  427-8. 
Basses,  222-3. 
Bauer,  E.  F.,  418. 
Bauer,  H.,  4x6. 


Beauty,  personal,  66, 118, 147,  167, 

171,  178,  235. 
Beethoven,  77,  103,  255-261,  300, 

320,  377. 
Begin,  when  to,  406. 
Behnke  and  Browne,  407. 
Bel  canto,  64,  loi,  107,  134,  168, 

200,  218,  439. 
Bellini,  80. 
Bennett,  J.,  21. 
Berlin,  earnings  of  musicians  in, 

5-7;    recitals  in,   7;    American 

teachers    in,    434;     cost    of    a 

musical  education,  436, 
Berlioz,  68,  264,  358. 
Bispham,  D.,  206,  435. 
Bloomfield.    See  Zeisler. 
Blumenschein,  W.  L.,  398-9. 
Bdito,  A.,  231. 
Bonci,  A.,  12. 
Boys'  voices,  training,  406. 
Brahms,  14,  247,  339,  354,  445. 
Brains,    using    the.     See    Mental 

Practicing. 
Brandt,  M.,  115,  213. 
Breathing,  33,  35,  132,  392. 
Br6val,  L.,  8. 
Bridges,  E.,  441. 
British,  Irish  and  Colonial  singers, 

95- 
Bull,  Ole,  338,  343-348. 
Bull,  Sara,  343,  346. 
Billow,  Hans  v.,  294,  295-301. 
Burbank,  E.,  175. 

Calve,  E.,  12,  19,  146-iSS.  215, 

233- 
Campanari,  G.,  420. 
Campanini,  I.,  73,  207-8. 


46s 


466 


INDEX 


Career,  music  as  a,  1-16;  starting 

a,  440. 
Carlyle,  44,  50. 
Carmen,  149. 
Caruso,  E.,  12,  23,  208-211,  412, 

438. 
Catalani,  A.,  12,  69-73. 
Charity,  51,  59.  66,  136. 
Charlatans,  329,  345,  409,  435. 
Charpentier,  77. 
Chase,  W.,  244. 
Chopin,   262-274,   285,   297,  303, 

306. 
Chorus  singers,  6,  8,  127. 
Church  singers,  444. 
Colorature.     See  Florid  Singing. 
Composers,  earnings  of,  7, 9, 13-16. 
Concerts.     See  Recitals. 
Contes  d'Hoffmann,  238. 
Contraltos,  88,  115,  118. 
Cooke,  J.  F.,  413. 
Cost  of  a  musical  education,  430. 
Costuming,  operatic,  89. 
Coup  de  la  glotte,  384. 
Cowles,  E.,  15. 
Cowen,  92. 

Critics,  4,  16,  22,  197,  426,  445. 
Curwen,  Mrs.,  406. 
Czerny,  258. 

Davies,  F.,  393. 

Dead  heads.    See  Free  List. 

Debussy,  77. 

Debuts,  440-4. 

Decay  of  the  art  of  song,  197-201. 

Desiree-Art6t,  4. 

Diet.     See  Health  Hints. 

Dippel,  A.,  135,  215,  390,  440. 

Don  Giovanni^  84,  183,  241. 

Donizetti,  80,  411. 

Dramatic  singing,  34,  73,  74,  80, 
84-86,  90,  100-5,  10&-114,  118, 
125,  128,  144,  148-151.  154,  165, 
180-5,  200,  217-222,  229,  230, 
232-4,  237-241,  243-9. 

Dvorak,  362. 

Dynamic  contrasts,  430. 


Fames,  E.,  12,  169-174. 
Earnings  of  musicians,  3-16,  53, 

56,  66,  75,  90,   119,   121,   130, 

206,    212,    245,   304,   309,   310, 

331,  344,  419,  441,  444. 
Easter,  C.  F.,  396. 
Edwards,  S.,  59,  74,  199. 
Eliot,    Ex-President   Charles  W., 

24,    418. 
Elson,  L.  C,  246. 
Encores,  447. 
England,  earnings  of  musicians  in, 

9- 

English,  singing  in,  433. 

Enunciation,  34,  227,  432. 

Expression,  35,  68,  74,  81,  83,  100- 
3,  107-9,  112,  116,  125,  135, 
144,  146,  148-154,  165,  168, 
181-8,  200,  205,  210,  218,  219- 
220,  222,  229,  231-3,  237-242, 
243-9,  257,  259-260,  264-274, 
281-292,  298-301,  307-8,  314- 
321,  333,  338,  341-2,  347,  355, 
360,  362-3,  370,  377,  394,  421- 

433- 

Facial  expression,  65,  149,  180, 

186,  195. 
Farrar,  G.,  12,  174-196,  233,  41a, 

427,  442. 
Faust,  154,  180. 

Fay,  Amy,  282,  286,  289-292,  355. 
Feeling.     See  Expression. 
Fidelio,  103,  105,  113. 
Fioriture.     See  Florid  Singing. 
Fischer,  E.,  19,  213. 
Floersheim,  O.,  221. 
Florid  singing,  69,  70-72,  75-81, 

107,  108,  139,  151,  202-4,  423. 
Free  list,  4,  7,  9. 
French  singers,  94,  146,  329-242. 

Gabrilowitch,  O.,  374- 
Gadsky,  J.,  12. 

Garcia,  M.,  31-34,  226,  380-8. 
Garden,  M.,  143-6,  420. 
Gates,  W.  F.,  436. 


INDEX 


467 


Genius,  411. 

German  singers,  93,  96-114,  217, 
242-9. 

Germany,  earnings  of  musicians 
in,  5-8;  welcomes  American 
voices,  440;  needs  colorature 
singers,  441.     See  Berlin. 

Gilibert,  C,  236,  239. 

Girls'  voices,  training,  406-7. 

Glaser,  L.,  441. 

Godowsky,  L.,  283. 

Goldmark,  79. 

GoUerich,  A.,  293. 

Gottschalk,  L.  M.,  4. 

Gounod,  77,  169. 

Grieg,  429. 

Grisi,  G.,  204-5. 

Hackett,  C.,  394,  432. 
Hallock,  M.,  377. 
Hamlet  y  151. 

Hammerstein,  O.,  143,  234. 
Hanslick,  E.,  58,  60,  65,  280,  302, 

355- 
Happiness  of  artists,  17-24,  53. 
Health  hints,  63,  82,  134,  173,  228, 

323.  387,  449-453- 
Henderson, W.  J.,  79,141,  235,  236. 
Henschel,  G.,  420. 
Herbert,  V.,  14. 
Hervey,  A.,  20. 
Hippius,  A.,  307,  308. 
Hofmann,  J.,  11. 
Holland  and  Rockstro,  29. 
Hueffer,  F.,  91. 
Hugo,  v.,  233,  275. 
HuUah,  A.,  376. 
Humming,  142,  154. 
Humperdinck,  14. 
Huneker,  J.,  164,  264,  266,  321. 
Hungarian  rhapsodies,  280. 
Hungarian  singers,  94. 
Hurry,  130,  419. 

Imitating  voices  i,  439. 
Improvising,   150,    256,   262,  321, 
^2.  427. 


Interpretation,  284,  288,  291-2, 
29s,  301,  332-  See  also  Ex- 
pression, 

Intonation,  65. 

Isaacs,  L.  M.,  14. 

Italy,  famous  singers  of,  60-83,  93 » 
253;  Leoncavallo's  lament,  8; 
earnings  of  singers  in,  8,  12,  66, 
75,  90;  scarcity  of  good  singers, 
8,  91,  92,  197;  American  girls 
in,  437-441;  conservatories,  437; 
concerts  in,  8,  279;  violinists  of, 
327;  old  Italian  method,  126,  439. 

Jervis,  p.  v.,  403. 
Joachim,  78,  344,  351-6. 
Johnson,  C.,  E.,  406. 
Jongleur  de  Notre  Dame,  238. 
Joseflfy,  R.,  403. 

Kalisch,  a.,  9. 

Kerr,  C.  V.,  92. 

Klein,  H.,  383,  384. 

Kobbe,  G.,  132,  138,  147,  170. 

Koven,  R.  de,  419. 

Krauss,  E.,  222. 

Krehbiel,  H.  E.,  141,  240,  310. 

Kreisler,  F.,  360-5. 

Kubelik,  J.,  11,  334-7- 

Lahee,  H.  C,  375. 

La  Mara,  86. 

Lamperti,  132. 

Laryngoscope,  384. 

Lathrop,  E.,  438. 

Lehar,  15. 

Lehmann,  L.,  12,  64,  105-114,  213, 

218,  386,  414,  448. 
Lenz,  W.  v.,  271,  287. 
Leoncavallo,  8,  14,  78. 
Leschetizky,  T.,  372-8,  413. 
Lessons.      See     Piano,     Singing, 

Violin  Lessons. 
Librettist,  at  rehearsals,  231. 
Liebling,  E.,  398,  430. 
Lind,  Jenny,    5,    12,    27-53,    118, 

385- 


468 


INDEX 


Liszt,  on  his  life,  20;  gives  up 
playing,  46;  on  Viardot-Garcia, 
85;  on  tempo  rubato,  270;  as 
pianist  and  teacher,  257-294; 
on  Paganini,  283;  on  Biilow, 
295;  Billow  on,  297-8;  as  inter- 
preter, 332;  on  Remenyi,  342; 
and  Ole  Bull,  344;  on  Wilhelmj, 
357;  prefers  teaching,  369; 
accentuation,  370;  as  prodigy, 
408;  on  programs,  446;  plays 
from  memory,  449. 

Litvinne,  F.,  390. 

London,  recitals  in,  9. 

Longevity,  secret  of  vocal,  63,  82, 
134,  i37>  188,  419. 

Lucca,  P.,  59,  1 27-13 1. 

Luckstone,  L,  442. 


MacDowell,  E.,  vii,  249. 
Mackinlay,  S.,  381,  et  seq. 
Madama  Butterfly,  184. 
Maine,  singers  from,  156. 
Magnetism,  423. 
Maitland,  R,  355. 
Make-up,  235-6. 
Malibran,  12,  88-90. 
Mallinger,  M.,  117,  129. 
Managers,  73,  441,  443. 
Mara,  97. 

Marchesi,  M.,  32,  139,  147,  169. 
Mario,  G.,  204-5. 
Marriage  and  music,  126,  132. 
Marsop,  P.,  6. 
Mascagni,  14,  78. 
Mason,  L.,  410. 

Mason,  Wm.,  289,  320,  369-372. 
Materna,  A.,  18,  119,  120,  127. 
Mathews,  W.  S.  B.,  4,  371-2,  397. 
Maurel,  V.,  229-234. 
McArthur,  A.,  306-7,  320,  411. 
Melba,  N.,  12,  138-143,  214. 
Melody,  445. 

Memory,  65,  296,  305,  376,  448. 
Mendelssohn,  39,  40,  41,  51,  344, 
352-3- 


Mental  practicing,  188,  273,  306, 

334,  385,  415-421,  422-428. 
Merry  Widow,  15. 
Messa  di  voce,  35. 
Metronomic  playing,  429. 
Meyerbeer,  39,  80,  128,  271. 
Mezza  voce,  35. 
Mignon,  183. 
Money.     See  Earnings. 
Moser,  355-6. 
Mottl,  F.,  6. 

Mozart,  loi,  224,  256,  298,  428. 
Murska,  I.  de,  73,  129. 

Nasal  resonance,  392. 
Nationality  of  singers,  91-95. 
Nervousness.     See  Stage  Fright. 
Nevers,  de,  152. 
New  York,  recitals  in,  4;  earnings 

of  famous  singers,  12;  as  a  place 

for  students,  434-440. 
Niecks,  F.,  264. 
Nikisch,  A.,  6. 
Nilsson,  C,  53-59. 
Nordica,  L.,  12,  19,  156-169,  190, 

214,  218,  448. 

Opera  houses,  440. 

Opera  singers,   earnings  of.     See 

Earnings, 
Operetta   singers,    122,    127,   419, 

441.^ 
Oratorio,  49. 
Orchestral  players,  5,  9. 
Organists,  earnings  of,  9. 
Organ-grinders,  5. 
Organ  recitals,  431. 
Ornaments,     vocal.       See    Florid 

Singing. 
Overproduction,  3-4. 
Overwork,  64,  413. 

Paderewski,  II,  13,  19,  265,  269, 
270,  309-323,  373,  374,  377,  4i5, 
454- 

Paganini,  N.,  278,  283,  327-334. 

Paine,  J.  K.,  170. 


INDEX 


469 


Palmer,  B.,  382. 

Parents,  advice  to,  6, 405-410,  434- 
440. 

Paris,  concerts  in,  8;  earnings  of 
singers,  8;  American  singers  in, 
95;     de    Reszke's   studio,    388. 

Parker,  H.  T.,  246. 

Parsifal  J  118. 

Pasta,  J.,  12,  74-75- 

Patti,  A.,  12,  60-69,  70,  426. 

Pause,  rhetorical,  292,  316,  377. 

Peasant  songs,  427. 

Pedal,  258,  267-8,  282,  317,  431. 

Pelleas  et  Melisande,  144. 

Perseverance,  146,  417. 

Personality,  421. 

Pfeiffer,  T.,  and  Vianna  da  Motta, 
301. 

Pfohl,  F.,  246. 

Phonographic  records,  210. 

Pianissimo  singing,  35. 

Piano  lessons  and  practicing, 
Beethoven,  249,  260-1;  Chopin, 
371-4;  Liszt,  276-8,  288,  289- 
292;  Biilow,  295,  297-301;  Ru- 
binstein, 303,  306;  Paderewski, 
322,  415;  Leschetizky,  373-8; 
JosefFy,  403;   Bauer,  416. 

Piano  technic,  282,  283,  285,  288, 

292.  314,  321,  322,  330.  370- 

Piano  virtuoso,  evolution  of,  253-4. 

Polish  singers,  94,  131-7,  211-223. 

Powell,  M.,  355,  422. 

Practicing.  See  Mental,  Piano, 
Singing,  Violin  Practicing. 

Prodigies,  408. 

Programs,  445. 

Puberty,  407. 

Puccini,  78. 

Pupils,  how  to  get,  393;  how  to  re- 
tain, 399. 

Ramann,  L.,  278. 

Recitals,  4,  5.  7.  8,  11,  123,  134, 
168,  242-9,  279,  312-321,  335- 
6,  341-2,  344,  347.  360-3.  433. 
443-9. 


Recitatives,  229,  236. 
Rehearsals,  414. 
Reisenauer,  A.,  403. 
Remenyi,  E.,  338-343. 
Renaud,  M.,  145,  233-242,  414. 
Reszke,  E.  de,  222-3,  39^- 
Reszke,  Jean  de,  m,  13,  163,  211- 

222,  388-394. 
Rider-Kelsey,  C,  444. 
Riemann,  H.,  20,  284,  296,  43  a. 
Rigoletto,  237. 
Romeo  and  Juliet,  179. 
Rosenthal,  M.,  403. 
Ross,  M.  W.,  421. 
Rossini,  46,  69,  80,  227,  411. 
Rubato.     See  Tempo. 
Rubini,  G.  B.,  201-4. 
Rubinstein,  A.,  5,  8,  20,  269,  302- 

8,  318,  408,  412,  431- 
Russell,  L.  A.,  433. 

Saint-Saens,  275,  280,  290,  430. 

Sal^za,  A.,  234. 

Sammarco,  M.,  237. 

Santley,  C,  3,  224-9. 

Sarasate,  P.,  15,  413. 

Sauer,  E.,  410. 

Savage,  H.  W.,  442. 

Scales,  32,  105,  383. 

Scandinavian  singers,  27-59,  94. 

Scaria,  E.,  218. 

Scharwenka,  X.,  416. 

ScheflF,  Fritzi,  123. 

Schindler,  A.,  259. 

Schlesinger,  S.,  163. 

Schmidt,  L.,  7. 

Schnorr  von  Carolsfeld,  218. 

School  singing,  405-6. 

Schroder-Devrient,  89, 99-105, 218. 

Schubert,  14,  23,  78,  125-6. 

Schumann-Heink,  12,  1 18-127. 

Schumann,  266,  285,  330,  417. 

Seidl,  A.,  no,  161-3,  171-2,  213, 

216,  394,  422. 
Sembrich,  M.,  12,  70,  13 1-7,  17  a, 

448. 
Stmiratnide,  80,  108. 


470 


INDEX 


Sevcik,  O.,  378-380. 

Shading,  35. 

Singing  lessons  and  practicing, 
Jenny  Lind,  29,  31-35;  Nils^on, 
54,  55;  Patti,  61,  65;  Pasta,  74; 
Tetrazzini,  82;  Viardot-Garcia, 
86;  Malibran,  88;  Schroder- 
Devrient,  loi,  105;  Lehmann, 
106,  112;  Brandt,  115,  118; 
Schumann-Heink,  1 20;  Sem- 
brich,  131,  136;  Melba,  139, 
142;  Garden,  143-4;  Calve, 
147, 154;  Nordica,  157-8, 161-3, 
167;  Eames,  170;  Farrar,  175- 
7,  185,  188,  190,  195;  Grisi  and 
Mario,  205;  Caruso,  208;  Sant- 
ley,  225-7;  Maurel,  230;  Re- 
naud,  235;  Wiillner,  247;  Garcia, 
380-8;  J.  de  Reszke,  212,  388- 
394.     See  Vocal  Technic. 

Sleep,  452. 

Smith,  Max,  244. 

Soloists,  4,  6,  8. 

Sontag,  70,  97. 

Sousa,  J.  P.,  ix,  16. 

Spain,  in  music,  85. 

Spanish  singers,  94,  146. 

Spanuth,  A.,  416,  442. 

Spohr,  349-351- 

Stage  Fright,  39,  57,  66,  81,  211, 

376,  447- 
Stainer,  Dr.,  406. 
Starting  a  career,  440. 
Sterling,  A.,  406,  422. 
Strauss,  R.,  14. 
Sullivan,  A.,  14. 
Swedish  singers,  27-59. 

Tamagno,  12,  206-7. 

Tannhduser,  186,  195. 

Taylor,  D.  C,  439. 

Tchaikovsky,  20. 

Teachers,  hints  to:  how  to  get 
pupils,  395-7;  where  to  locate, 
397-9;  how  to  retain  pupils, 
399-404.  See  also  Practicing 
and  pp.  411-433- 


Teachers,  some  famous,  369-394. 

Technic.    See  Piano,  Violin,  Vocal 

Technic. 

Temperament,  421-8. 

Tempest,  M.,  387. 

Tempo,  and  tempo  rubato,   258, 

269-271,  299,  319  371.  428-430, 

454- 
Tenors,  202-223,  224. 
Temina,  M.,  12,  214. 
Tetrazzini,  L.,  12,  75-83,  420. 
Thais,  144,  240. 
Thalberg,  S.,  4,  283. 
Thompson,  L.,  17. 
Tietjens,  T.,  158. 
Tom,  Blind,  449. 
Tomlins,  W.  M.,  405. 
Tone  and  Touch,  306,  307,  370, 

372- 
Tosi,  P.  F.,  198,  439. 
Touch.     See  Tone. 
Traditions,  259. 
Traviata,  La,  59,  83,  140,  182. 
Tremolo,  132,  385,  392. 
Tristan  and  Isolde,  84,  no,  161-3. 

Upton,  G.  P.,  340. 

Ventilation,  451. 

Verdi,    earnings,    14;     abandons 

florid  song,  78;  on  Maurel,  229, 

232;  adopts  Wagner's  ideas,  231. 
Viardot-Garcia,  59,  75,  84-87. 
Vieuxtemps,  H.,  355. 
Violin   lessons   and   technic,   330, 

334,  33S-6,  346,  3SI-6,  357.  S^i, 

378-380. 
Violins,  327. 

Virtuosity,  284,  302,  338,  361,  379. 
Vocal  technic,  32,  34,  35,  64,  70, 

76,  86,  97,    loi,  105,  108,    113. 

126,  197-201,  205,  231,  233,  249, 
Voice,  loss  of,  414. 


Wagnalls,  M. 
173.  185. 


107,  139,  142,  i53» 


INDEX 


471 


Wagner,  C,  161, 

Wagner,  R.,  at  Bayreuth  Festival, 
17;  unhappy,  18;  eschews  florid 
song,  77;  admires  Viardot- 
Garcia,  84;  his  idol,  99;  his 
ideal,  105;  and  bel  canto,  106; 
on  beauty  and  talent,  118; 
"ruins  the  voice,"  130,  164-5; 
craze  in  New  York,  141;  and 
Calv6,  148,  153,  215;  made 
fashionable,  213;  on  Schnorr, 
218;  on  the  voice,  220;  Verdi 
follows  his  method,  231;  Sainte- 
Beuve's  prophecy,  232;  and 
Victor  Hugo,  233;  on  Liszt,  275; 
teaches  Btilow,  295;  engages  Wil- 


helmj,  358;    on  violinists,  360; 

and  the  voice,  414;  on  bar  lines, 

427-8;   melody,  432. 
Weber,  14,  77. 
Weingartner,  F.,  6. 
Whistling,  356. 
Wilhelmj,  A.,  357-360. 
Will  power,  417,  419. 
Winn,  E.  L.,  404,  435. 
Wodehouse,  Mrs.,  432. 
Wolfsohn,  H.,  443. 
Work,  411.    See  Lessons. 
Wiillner,  L.,  242-9. 

Zeisler,  Bl6omfield,  P.,  375. 
Zenatello,  12. 


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and  enthusiastically  from  a  practical  standpoint,  and 
his  treatise  is  just  what  he  intended  it  to  be  :  a  sort 
of  song-Baedeker,  with  bibliographic  foot-notes  for 
the  benefit  of  students  who  wish  to  pursue  the 
subject  further."— TA^  Dial. 

"  May  be  taken  by  the  amateur  or  professional 
as  a  thoroughly  safe  and  helpful  guide." 

— Chicago  Inter  Ocean, 


BOOKS    BY    HENRY   T.    FINCK 


Primitive  Love  and  Love -Stories 

8v0y  $3.00  net 

This  work  is  the  fruit  of  thirteen  years  of  research 
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of  marriage. 

Lotos -Time  in  Japan 

JVith  16  full-page  illustrations.    Crown  8vo,  $1.75  net 

"  Mr.  Finck  shows  the  every-day  life  of  the  Japanese 
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Spain  and  Morocco 
Studies  in  Local  Color 

12mo,  $1.25  net 

"A  compact  little  volume  that  should  usefully  supplement 
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The  Pacific  Coast  Scenic  Tour 

From  Southern  California  to  Alaska;  the  Yosemite, 
the  Canadian  Pacific  Railway,  Yellowstone  Park, 
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Illustrated.     8vo,  $2.00  net 

"  Of  all'the  tourist  books  that  have  been  written  about  the 
Pacific  coast  this  is  by  far  the  best." — San  Francisco  Bulletin. 


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